NEWT Scanner stores credentials in plain text

[~Kevin Davis³ <computerguy () cfl rr com>]

I have posted this issue to a couple entities like NTbugtraq and CERT with no response.  Please read below...


Software Vendor: Tenable Security (www.tenablesecurity.com)
Software Package: Newt 
Versions Affected: 1.4 and earlier (and possibly 1.5)
Synopsis: Username and password for various accounts stored in unencrypted plain text

Issue Date: Feb 22, 2004

Vendor Response: Vendor notified December 4, 2003
   Vendor declined to resolve issue 

================================================================================

1. Summary

NEWT is a commercial Windows port of the open source Nessus Vulnerability scanner by
Tenable security.  Newt stores the credentials of various types of accounts in 
unencrypted plain text in a configuration file. 

2. Problem Description

The config.xml files stores username and password information for various types 
of accounts in unencrypted plain text.  Those parameters are typically set from 
the NEWT Scanner interface.  When setting these parameters, the user is also not 
informed of this sensitive information being stored insecurely.  This potentially 
affects the following types of accounts:

FTP
IMAP
POP2
POP3
NNTP
SNMP
SMB (Windows NT Domain)

Typically this config file is stored locally at the following location:

\Documents and Settings\<Username>\Tenable\NeWT\config\config.xml

3. Solution

None at this time.  A lengthy discussion with the vendor resulted in the vendor's 
decision that this was not a security risk that warrants resolution on.