VoIP-Phones: Weakness in proccessing SIP-Notify-Messages

[Tobias Glemser <tglemser () tele-consulting com>]

                              Tele-Consulting GmbH
                        security | networking | training
                        
                                advisory 05/07/06

URL of this advisory:
http://pentest.tele-consulting.com/advisories/05_07_06_voip-phones.txt


Topic:
        Weakness in implemenation of proccessing SIP-Notify-Messages
        in VoIP-Phones.

Summary:
        Due to ignoring the value of 'Call-ID' and even 'tag' and
        'branch' while processing NOTIFY messages, VoIP-Hardphones
        process spoofed status messages like "Messages-Waiting".
        
        According to RFC 3265, Chap 3.2 every NOTIFY has to be em-
        bedded in a subcription mechanism. If there ain't knowledge
        of a subscription, the UAC has to respond with a "481
        Subscription does not exist" message.

        All tested phones processed the "Messages-Waiting" messages
        without prior subscriptions anywhere.

Effect:
        An attacker could send "Messages-Waiting: yes" messages to
        all phones in a SIP-environment. Almost every phone proccesses
        this status message and shows the user an icon or a blinking
        display to indicate that new messages are available on the
        voice box.
        
        If the attacker sends this message to many recipients in a
        huge environment, it would lead to server peaks as many users
        will call the voice box at the same time.
        Because there are no new voice messages as indicated by the
        phone the users will call the support to fix this alleged server
        problem.

        All tested phones process the message with a resetted Call-ID,
        'branch' and 'tag' sent by a spoofed IP-Adress.

Example:
        Attacker spoofs the SIP-Proxys IP, here: 10.1.1.1
        Victim 10.1.1.2
        
        UDP-Message from Attacker to Victim
        
        Session Initiation Protocol
             Request-Line: NOTIFY sip:login@10.1.1.2 SIP/2.0
             Message Header
                Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 15.1.1.12:5060;branch=000000000000000
                From: "asterisk" <sip:asterisk@10.1.1.1>;tag=000000000
                To: <sip:login@10.1.1.2>
                Contact: <sip:asterisk@10.1.1.1>
                Call-ID: 00000000000000@10.1.1.1
                CSeq: 102 NOTIFY
                User-Agent: Asterisk PBX
                Event: message-summary
                Content-Type: application/simple-message-summary
                Content-Length: 37
        Message body
                Messages-Waiting: yes\n
                Voicemail: 3/2\n

Solution:
        Phones who receive a NOTIFY message to which no subscription
        exists, must send a "481 Subscription does not exist" response.
        It should be possible to use the REGISTER request as a
        non-SUBSCRIBE mechanism to set up a valid subscription.

        This would reduce the possibility of an attack in a way, that
        only with a sniffed and spoofed subcription such an attack would
        be possible. Background is given by the way dialogs are des-
        cribed in RFC 3261 and the sections 5.5 and 3.2 of RFC 3265.


Affected products:
        Cisco 7940/7960
        Grandstream BT 100
        others will be tested in future


--
Tobias Glemser


TTTTTTT CCCC
  TT   C  tglemser () tele-consulting com         +49 (0)7032/97580  (fon)
  TT  C   pentest.tele-consulting.com          +49 (0)7032/74750  (fax)
  TT  C
  TT   C  Tele-Consulting GmbH, Siedlerstrasse 22-24, 71126 Gaeufelden
  TT    CCCC             security | networking | training