Full Disclosure mailing list archives

Re: Barracuda backdoor


From: "Hartley, Christopher J." <hartley.87 () osu edu>
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 18:18:37 +0000

fwiw, I've run into a Barracuda instance that had an ssh connection (reverse
shell) open to an address in XO address space.  The user (owner of the Barracuda)
indicated that it was expected, as it was how they were getting support through 
the company.  Not sure I'd permit that without a real demonstration of value and
assurances of limits on that access.

As to what changes they can make when or why, I have no idea.  No matter what
the case, it's always hard for me to trust a vendor when it comes down to production
services. 


On Apr 28, 2011, at 12:09 PM, <Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu>
 <Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu> wrote:

On Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:09:14 +0300, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?T=F5nu_Samuel?= said:

One day their Barracuda product stopped working.

OK... That's hardly surprising, given the high-quality software engineering
that Barracuda is known for.. ;)

Barracuda not only disabled all kind of subscription services but also
used some kind of backdoor in their products to disable product customer
had paid long time ago.

And I should believe this claim, why?

Message was shown "Error: Activation has not been completed. Please
activate your Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall to enable functionality.
(Click here to activate)". Customer was blocked to make any changes in
admin interface of product. Even more irritating was fact that admin
wanted to see why some e-mails were lost and was denied even to see logs!

Strong claims require strong evidence.  It's well-known that Barracuda turns
off subscription services if you don't pay - and even charges you back coverage
for years you skipped.  See the thread starting here:

http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2011-April/035067.html

Now the question is - given that *that* Barracuda was at least semi-functional
even when off support, do we have any indication that your unit was in fact
intentionally disabled?  It could very well be the symptoms you are seeing are
the unit being just plain *broken*.
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