CheckPoint Secure Platform Multiple Buffer Overflows

[hvazquez () pentest es]

Hi all,

we have published a paper about CheckPoint Firewall-1 vulnerabilities. The platform tested is the Secure Platform R60. 
We have found many buffer overflows. Most of them are located in command line utilities that can be exploited locally. 
A very few of them maybe can be exploited remotely, we don't know...  
It seems that there's no need to be worried about this vulnerabilities, as it seems that none of them can be exploited 
from remote -right now-. What looks interesting to us is the hacking process of the target of evaluation.

As many of you know, the Check Point Secure Platform R60 was certified with the EAL4+ Common Criteria assurance level.

Our tests to locate those vulnerabilities -many memory corruption problems- had been very simple so we are a bit scared 
about the degree of reliability of the CheckPoint development cycle. In the paper called: "Check Point VPN-1/FireWall-1 
NGX Security Target Version 1.2.2" and prepared to achieve the certification, there is a statement like this: "the 
developer has systematically searched for vulnerabilities in the TOE and provides reasoning about why they cannot be 
exploited in the intended environment for the TOE".
Systematically? We have found several overflows simply by manual fuzzing arguments of binaries from command line....

On the other hand in the "Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme Validation Report"  for "Check Point 
VPN-1/Firewall-1 NGX (R60)" -Report Number: CCEVS-VR-06-0033- we can read: "A security reporting procedure is available 
to all Enterprise Software Subscribers as well as third-party vulnerability researchers."....
Regarding to this: we have tried to contact CheckPoint since March 2007. Six months after that first attempt we are 
still unable to talk with them. We are sure they have a "reporting procedure"... but we have not been able 
read/see/listen about it. The only thing CheckPoint did from their support email was to redirect us to our country. 
Unfortunately, after some contacts with representatives of CheckPoint here in Spain we were unable to arrange a single 
meeting.

OK, this is a vulnerabilities forum so let's talk about technical issues.

The interest of the released paper is the exploitation environment: RedHat Linux + Exec-Shield + CPSHELL + many 
vulnerable binaries...

Summarizing, the system protections are:

- Non executable stack/heap,...
- Random stack/heap base address
- ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization)
- ASCII Armor (libraries mapped under 16MB, so null byte in its address)
- CPSHELL - a hardened shell that only allows to run specific commands and a very restricted sub-range of ASCII chars.

Even if we are not reinventing the wheel, I honestly think that the exploitation scenario is far from "confortable"... 
At the end a P.o.C. exploit has been released for those who want to check that the vulnerability is really exploitable.

What we want to show is that this exploitation has been possible because of the large number of overflows found in the 
target. At the end we found a suitable one to exploit! I think this is not serious for a certified product to have so 
much vulnerabilities. I think it is not serious for a firewall vendor to have so much easily detectable bugs. 

I would like to excuse myself to the Exec-Shield developers. This paper is not about how to bypass Exec-Shield -and 
have the reader into account we are evaluating an old version- but is about Check Point firewall security. Kernel 
patches are a must but we must not rely on them. Buggy software is difficult to protect, even by the most advanced 
kernel protections. Exec-Shield is a wonderful work and I have learned a lot by reading its code. 

The paper can be downloaded from:

http://www.pentest.es/checkpoint_hack.pdf

Regards,

-- 

Hugo Vázquez Caramés

"There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand
binary, and those who don't"

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