RE: Sygate Personal Firewall can be shut down without a need to supply

["Eitan Caspi" <eitancaspi () yahoo com>]

Hello Seth,

Thanks for taking the time to comment about this issue.

1. As you may noticed, I used the term "privileged users". Stopping
service is enabled for the members of the local power users as well, so
the problem range is wider.

2. I will sharpen my point: You are absolutely correct about the fact
that local admins can stop services.

If you will see in my note, I wrote:
" Privileged users CAN START the procedure of stopping the service -
BUT, the application vendor CAN (as part of the overall procedures
performed when an application is being shut down) place a code section
that forces a password prompt at the beginning of the stopping process
and if the password is wrong - to stop the stopping process. "

I ask you this: Do you claim that what I wrote is technically wrong and
it can't be done by sygate?

If this is the claim and it is technically true (I'm not a developer,
but a system admin) - I redraw my claims and ask for your forgiveness.

If you are not able to claim this - then Sygate has just overlooked this
problem and didn't close this breach.


3. Let's be accurate here: YOU added, in your email, the words
"non-administrator". I never claimed the "password for exit" is meant
only for "non-administrator" users. Neither did Sygate!!!- I have seen
the help for the product on your web site - and the password feature was
not even mentioned by text or in the screen shot of the "general" tab!!!
Probably the help pages was not so updated...

A false sense of security is certainly a vulnerability.


)The above section of the email was written before re-visiting the help
web pages of the product. The following section was written after a
re-visit)



NOW, I have just re-visited the help pages and I must say I'm shocked!!!

Just a day or two ago I visited the web help for the product and the
section describing the "general" tab showed a screen shot of an earlier
version of the product and the whole "password protection" section was
missing from the picture!!! And of course there was no explanation about
this feature!!!

When I entered NOW to the same page 
( http://soho.sygate.com/support/documents/spf_help/general_tab.htm ) -
Suddenly the screen shot is showing the "password protection" feature
and there is even an explanation to the feature.

But that's not all - here comes the best:
The screen shot shows that the "ask password while exiting" is dimmed
and can't be chosen and the password description is not explaining about
this check box at all!!!

Beside the fact that this is not the actual current application behavior
but only a specially crafted form - what you are doing by this is
arrogantly covering your blame!!!

I can't express my absolute rejection feelings towards this act!
Security is first of all credibility - and as far as my concern: 
You just lost it!

Eitan Caspi
Israel

-----Original Message-----
From: Seth Knox [mailto:seth.knox () sygate com] 
Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2002 8:14 PM
To: 'bugtraq () securityfocus com'
Cc: 'eitancaspi () yahoo com'
Subject: Sygate Personal Firewall can be shut down without a need to
supply

If you are an Administrator of a computer, you have the absolute right
to stop any service, including the Sygate Personal Firewall Service,
using the services window or "net stop" command.  This is not a
vulnerability but rather the intended implementation of the Microsoft
operating system.  If the administrator of the computer wants to prevent
other users from stopping the Sygate Personal Firewall Service, they
should not grant that right to other users. As you mentioned in your
email, Sygate Personal Firewall has the option to prevent any
non-administrator from exiting the firewall or stopping the application
from the task menu without a password.  In enterprise and government
organizations, Sygate Secure Enterprise initiates a challenge/response
enforcement protocol that ensures that Sygate Security Agent, as well as
third-party applications, are running and up-to-date before any system
can connect to the network.
 
Seth Knox
Product Manager
Sygate Technologies