Vulnerabilities > CVE-2011-3478 - Improper Authentication vulnerability in Symantec Pcanywhere
Attack vector
NETWORK Attack complexity
LOW Privileges required
NONE Confidentiality impact
COMPLETE Integrity impact
COMPLETE Availability impact
COMPLETE Summary
The host-services component in Symantec pcAnywhere 12.5.x through 12.5.3, and IT Management Suite pcAnywhere Solution 7.0 (aka 12.5.x) and 7.1 (aka 12.6.x), does not properly filter login and authentication data, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted session on TCP port 5631.
Vulnerable Configurations
| Part | Description | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Application | 8 |
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- Authentication Abuse An attacker obtains unauthorized access to an application, service or device either through knowledge of the inherent weaknesses of an authentication mechanism, or by exploiting a flaw in the authentication scheme's implementation. In such an attack an authentication mechanism is functioning but a carefully controlled sequence of events causes the mechanism to grant access to the attacker. This attack may exploit assumptions made by the target's authentication procedures, such as assumptions regarding trust relationships or assumptions regarding the generation of secret values. This attack differs from Authentication Bypass attacks in that Authentication Abuse allows the attacker to be certified as a valid user through illegitimate means, while Authentication Bypass allows the user to access protected material without ever being certified as an authenticated user. This attack does not rely on prior sessions established by successfully authenticating users, as relied upon for the "Exploitation of Session Variables, Resource IDs and other Trusted Credentials" attack patterns.
- Exploiting Trust in Client (aka Make the Client Invisible) An attack of this type exploits a programs' vulnerabilities in client/server communication channel authentication and data integrity. It leverages the implicit trust a server places in the client, or more importantly, that which the server believes is the client. An attacker executes this type of attack by placing themselves in the communication channel between client and server such that communication directly to the server is possible where the server believes it is communicating only with a valid client. There are numerous variations of this type of attack.
- Utilizing REST's Trust in the System Resource to Register Man in the Middle This attack utilizes a REST(REpresentational State Transfer)-style applications' trust in the system resources and environment to place man in the middle once SSL is terminated. Rest applications premise is that they leverage existing infrastructure to deliver web services functionality. An example of this is a Rest application that uses HTTP Get methods and receives a HTTP response with an XML document. These Rest style web services are deployed on existing infrastructure such as Apache and IIS web servers with no SOAP stack required. Unfortunately from a security standpoint, there frequently is no interoperable identity security mechanism deployed, so Rest developers often fall back to SSL to deliver security. In large data centers, SSL is typically terminated at the edge of the network - at the firewall, load balancer, or router. Once the SSL is terminated the HTTP request is in the clear (unless developers have hashed or encrypted the values, but this is rare). The attacker can utilize a sniffer such as Wireshark to snapshot the credentials, such as username and password that are passed in the clear once SSL is terminated. Once the attacker gathers these credentials, they can submit requests to the web service provider just as authorized user do. There is not typically an authentication on the client side, beyond what is passed in the request itself so once this is compromised, then this is generally sufficient to compromise the service's authentication scheme.
- Man in the Middle Attack This type of attack targets the communication between two components (typically client and server). The attacker places himself in the communication channel between the two components. Whenever one component attempts to communicate with the other (data flow, authentication challenges, etc.), the data first goes to the attacker, who has the opportunity to observe or alter it, and it is then passed on to the other component as if it was never intercepted. This interposition is transparent leaving the two compromised components unaware of the potential corruption or leakage of their communications. The potential for Man-in-the-Middle attacks yields an implicit lack of trust in communication or identify between two components.
Exploit-Db
description Symantec pcAnywhere 12.5.0 Windows x86 - Remote Code Execution. CVE-2011-3478. Remote exploit for win32 platform file exploits/windows_x86/remote/38599.py id EDB-ID:38599 last seen 2016-02-04 modified 2015-11-02 platform windows_x86 port published 2015-11-02 reporter Tomislav Paskalev source https://www.exploit-db.com/download/38599/ title Symantec pcAnywhere 12.5.0 Windows x86 - Remote Code Execution type remote description Symantec PcAnywhere 12.5.0 Login and Password Field Buffer Overflow. CVE-2011-3478. Remote exploit for windows platform id EDB-ID:19407 last seen 2016-02-02 modified 2012-06-27 published 2012-06-27 reporter S2 Crew source https://www.exploit-db.com/download/19407/ title Symantec PcAnywhere 12.5.0 Login and Password Field Buffer Overflow
Nessus
| NASL family | Windows |
| NASL id | SYMANTEC_PCANYWHERE_125_MULTIPLE_VULNS.NASL |
| description | The version of Symantec pcAnywhere installed on the remote host is potentially affected by multiple vulnerabilities : - When handling an authentication request the process copies the user-supplied username unsafely to a fixed-length buffer, which could lead to arbitrary code execution. (CVE-2011-3478) - A local privilege escalation vulnerability exists because some files uploaded to the system during product installation are installed as writable by everyone. (CVE-2011-3479) - During a valid client server session unexpected input to the client can result in an exception error. This can create an acess violation resulting in the remote session being dropped but leaving the client session open in specific instances. (CVE-2012-0290) - Malformed input to a client or server or, an unexpected response to a request could potentially destabilize the application causing it to hang or crash resulting in a denial of service. (CVE-2012-0291) |
| last seen | 2020-06-01 |
| modified | 2020-06-02 |
| plugin id | 57796 |
| published | 2012-02-02 |
| reporter | This script is Copyright (C) 2012-2018 Tenable Network Security, Inc. |
| source | https://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/57796 |
| title | Symantec pcAnywhere Multiple Vulnerabilities (SYM12-002) |
| code | |
Packetstorm
| data source | https://packetstormsecurity.com/files/download/114230/pcanywhere-overflow.txt |
| id | PACKETSTORM:114230 |
| last seen | 2016-12-05 |
| published | 2012-06-27 |
| reporter | S2 Crew |
| source | https://packetstormsecurity.com/files/114230/Symantec-PcAnywhere-12.5.0-Buffer-Overflow.html |
| title | Symantec PcAnywhere 12.5.0 Buffer Overflow |
Saint
| bid | 51592 |
| description | Symantec pcAnywhere Host Services Login Overflow |
| id | misc_pcanywherever |
| osvdb | 78532 |
| title | symantec_pcanywhere_host_services_login |
| type | remote |
Seebug
| bulletinFamily | exploit |
| description | No description provided by source. |
| id | SSV:60241 |
| last seen | 2017-11-19 |
| modified | 2012-06-27 |
| published | 2012-06-27 |
| reporter | Root |
| source | https://www.seebug.org/vuldb/ssvid-60241 |
| title | Symantec PcAnywhere 12.5.0 Login and Password Field Buffer Overflow |
References
- http://osvdb.org/show/osvdb/78532
- http://secunia.com/advisories/48092
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/51592
- http://www.symantec.com/security_response/securityupdates/detail.jsp?fid=security_advisory&pvid=security_advisory&year=2012&suid=20120124_00
- http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-12-018/
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/38599/