Lots of late-breaking announcements ahead of tomorrow's big Microsoft vulnerability release. Most notable are multiple critical Apple Mac vulnerabilities, independent of the wireless discussion that affects nearly every wireless card, albeit in different ways. And a security product, CA eTrust AV has a critical vulnerability. These need to be fixed today if they haven't already been patched. Note also that nearly 120 new vulnerabilities were discovered this week - that's a 6,000 vulnerabilities per year rate of discovery. Well over half are in web applications.
Next week is the deadline for the big early registration discount for SANS Network Security program in Las Vegas (October 1-8). This national conference offers far more than the world's best hands-on, immersion training in all aspects of security (20 tracks). It also boasts a big exhibition of the most important products in computer security, numerous evening sessions on the latest advances in technology and policy, Stay Sharp sessions on new hacker techniques and a dozen other topics, and much more.
Alan
@RISK is the SANS community's consensus bulletin summarizing the most important vulnerabilities and exploits identified during the past week and providing guidance on appropriate actions to protect your systems (PART I). It also includes a comprehensive list of all new vulnerabilities discovered in the past week (PART II).
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Errata: In the previous issue of the @RISK newsletter it was wrongly reported that the iPolicy Network Security Manager is vulnerable to the flaw discussed in item #4. This information was gathered directly from the then posted eIQNetworks security advisory.
References: http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/fulldisclosure/2006-07/0700.html
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Errata: In the previous issue of the @RISK newsletter it was wrongly reported that the iPolicy Network Security Manager is vulnerable to the flaw discussed in item #4. This information was gathered directly from the then posted eIQNetworks security advisory.
References: http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/fulldisclosure/2006-07/0700.html
Part I is compiled by Rob King and Rohit Dhamankar at TippingPoint, a division of 3Com, as a by-product of that company's continuous effort to ensure that its intrusion prevention products effectively block exploits using known vulnerabilities. TippingPoint's analysis is complemented by input from a council of security managers from twelve large organizations who confidentially share with SANS the specific actions they have taken to protect their systems. A detailed description of the process may be found at http://www.sans.org/newsletters/cva/#process
Description: Apple released security fixes for numerous vulnerabilities, including at least five vulnerabilities that could be exploited by an attacker to compromise a Mac OS X system. Flaws in the Apple Filing Protocol server, the ImageIO image viewing and manipulation framework, the fetchmail mail-retrieval client, and the DHCP/BOOTP client code can lead to remote-code execution. Other vulnerabilities range from arbitrary file overwrites and information disclosure to denial-of-service conditions. Users are advised to update immediately. At least one proof-of-concept, for the fetchmail vulnerability, is publicly available.
Status: Apple confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: All council sites using the affected software have already distributed the updates.
Description: Computer Associates eTrust AntiVirus WebScan uses an ActiveX component that contains multiple remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities. By causing a user to visit a malicious web page that instantiates the component and instructs it to update the application, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user, or severely limit the protection afforded to the user by the antivirus engine. Two of the flaws are due to improper validation of the updated files list: files may be replaced by malicious versions (leading to remote code execution) or outdated versions (leading to limited protection). Additionally, an overly-long filename in the updated file list may lead to a buffer overflow and arbitrary code execution. Note that no user interaction beyond visiting a malicious web page is necessary for exploitation.
Status: Computer Associates confirmed, updates available.
Description: Researchers have discovered flaws in several device drivers for various WiFi network cards that could be exploited to execute arbitrary code. By sending specially-crafted WiFi protocol traffic to a target machine, an attacker can take complete control of the vulnerable system. A proof-of-concept for a third-party WiFi card under Mac OS X was demonstrated recently at the Black Hat 2006 security conference. According to the initial disclosure, flaws were discovered in several other operating system/WiFi card combinations. Because these flaws exist at the device driver level, the target machine does not need to be associated to a wireless network; simply having an active WiFi card is sufficient for exploitation. The list of vulnerable card/operating system combinations is currently unknown.
Status: Intel has released updated Microsoft Windows drivers that apparently fix this issue. However, Intel did not specifically reference the initial Black Hat 2006 disclosure in the update documentation. It is unknown what if any other vendors are affected.
Council Site Actions: All responding council sites are investigating this issue. Most will deploy the updates very soon; the others are still investigating how they will remediate the issue.
Description: Mozilla Firefox reportedly contains a vulnerability that can be exploited to execute arbitrary code. The flaw, a race condition, arises from the browser's failure to properly validate multiple "CSS" attributes stacked across "SPAN HTML" tags. No technical details for this vulnerability have been publicly posted. A proof-of-concept creating a denial-of-service condition has been publicly posted to the TOR network (an anonymous routing network). A remote code execution proof-of-concept is available for a fee, though this is not confirmed to work.
Status: Firefox has not confirmed, no updates available.
Council Site Actions: Most of the responding council sites do not yet formally support Firefox. However many sites use it and they rely on the user population employing the Auto Update feature to keep the software up to date.
Description: PHP, the popular web-centric programming language, contains several remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities. The exact nature of these flaws has not been publicly disclosed. Flaws have been reported in the wordwrap(), tempnam(), error_log(), substr_compare(), and phpinfo() functions as well as the code used to parse session names. Users of these functions, and users who allow arbitrary individuals to upload PHP scripts, are advised to upgrade immediately. Because PHP is open source software, technical details for these vulnerabilities can be easily obtained by analyzing the source code.
Status: PHP confirmed, updates available.
Council Site Actions: Only one of the responding council sites plans to address this issue -- their servers will be updated within the next week.
Description: LibTIFF, a popular library for parsing TIFF images, is reported to contain multiple remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities. The TIFF image file format is popular in scientific imaging and high-end graphics applications. By causing a user to view a specially-crafted TIFF image file, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. LibTIFF is installed by default on Mac OS X systems, and installed on the vast majority of Linux, Unix, and Unix-like systems. Some applications may also install LibTIFF on Microsoft Windows systems. Depending on system configuration, no user interaction beyond viewing a malicious web page or email message would be necessary for exploitation. Because LibTIFF is open source software, technical details for these vulnerabilities can be easily obtained by analyzing the source code.
Status: Updates are available from various Linux vendors.
Council Site Actions: Only two of the responding council sites plan to remediate this issue and both will deploy the updates during their next regularly scheduled system update process.
Description: McAfee SecurityCenter, a comprehensive client security suite, contains an unspecified remote code execution vulnerability. By causing a user to click on a malicious URL, an attacker could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. No technical details for this vulnerability have been publicly posted.
Status: McAfee confirmed, updates available. McAfee has also made the fixed versions available via their live update servers.
Description: TWiki, a popular enterprise collaboration platform, contains a remote command-execution vulnerability. By sending a specially-crafted HTTP POST request to the TWiki "configure" script (installed by default as "/twiki/bin/configure"), an attacker can execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the web server process. This flaw is due to a failure to sanitize calls to the Perl "system()" function. The TWiki security advisory includes technical details and a proof-of-concept for this vulnerability.
Status: TWiki confirmed, updates available. Users are advised to implement server-based access control on the configure script (through, for example ".htaccess" files on Apache) and to limit the IP addresses that can connect to the configuration interface.
Council Site Actions: The affected software and/or configuration are not in production or widespread use, or are not officially supported at any of the council sites. They reported that no action was necessary.
Description: Jetbox, a popular content management system, contains multiple remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities include remote command execution with the privileges of the web server process, cross-site scripting, session hijacking, and information disclosure. The remote command execution vulnerability requires that the PHP "magic_quotes_gpc" configuration directive be disabled. It is enabled by default on recent versions of PHP. Technical details for these vulnerabilities are publicly available.
Status: Jetbox has not confirmed, no updates available.
Council Site Actions: The affected software and/or configuration are not in production or widespread use, or are not officially supported at any of the council sites. They reported that no action was necessary.
Description: The following popular software packages reportedly contain PHP remote file include vulnerabilities: Kayako eSupport, the Security Images component of Joomla, PHPAuction (when used with phpAdsNew), ModernBill, and WoW Roster. These flaws can be exploited by a remote attacker to run arbitrary PHP code on the web server hosting the vulnerable software packages. The postings show how to craft the malicious HTTP requests to exploit the flaws. Note that all of these vulnerabilities require that the PHP "register_globals" option be enabled. The "register_globals" option is disabled by default in PHP version 4.2.0 and later. Users are advised to disable the "register_globals" option if possible, and run web server software under a low-privilege account. Status: Kayako has not confirmed, no updates available. Joomla has not confirmed, no updates available. PHPAuction has not confirmed, no updates available. ModernBill has not confirmed, no updates available.
Council Site Actions: The affected software and/or configuration are not in production or widespread use, or are not officially supported at any of the council sites. They reported that no action was necessary.
This list is compiled by Qualys ( www.qualys.com ) as part of that company's ongoing effort to ensure its vulnerability management web service tests for all known vulnerabilities that can be scanned. As of this week Qualys scans for 5104 unique vulnerabilities. For this special SANS community listing, Qualys also includes vulnerabilities that cannot be scanned remotely.
(c) 2006. All rights reserved. The information contained in this newsletter, including any external links, is provided "AS IS," with no express or implied warranty, for informational purposes only. In some cases, copyright for material in this newsletter may be held by a party other than Qualys (as indicated herein) and permission to use such material must be requested from the copyright owner.
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