FTC, FBI sites leave opening for hacker access

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/00/12/08/001208hnfbiftc.xml?p=br&s=9

By James Evans and Joris Evers
Friday, Dec. 8, 2000 2:50 pm PT

A EUROPEAN INFORMATION security specialist says that he discovered a
potential security hazard in two U.S. government Web sites that use
Netscape Communications Enterprise Server, including the online home
of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The specialist, once a hacker and now a member of HIT2000 Information
Security, discovered a Web page that offers potential access to the
U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Web site: www.ftc.gov. The IDG
News Service later learned that a similar page exists on the FBI Web
site: www.fbi.gov.

Although it is not exactly clear what can be accessed from the
apparent holes, the ex-hacker discovered he was able to access the
FBI's Web site manager directory, showing a full directory listing of
the FBI Web server.

Security experts suggest any hint of a vulnerability can make the
sites a target for hackers.

"The less you give out to the public, the better," said Richard Smith,
an Internet security consultant based in Brookline, Mass. "You really
don't want these pages to be visible outside the organization. You
really want to hide this stuff so people won't have any idea of where
to poke. It should be obscured. It should be internal."

Both the FTC and FBI run Netscape Enterprise Server software. The Web
sites offer access to the server's Publisher program, which when
enabled gives authorized users access to make alterations to Web
sites. According to the European specialist, who asked not to be
identified, Publisher allows anyone on the Web to look at certain
internal logs and directories on the server, even when it is disabled.

"Netscape Publisher is meant for Web site administrators to manage the
site," he said in an e-mail interview. "Log-in name is 'admin' and
typically there is no administrator password. You can use it to browse
through the site and might stumble upon log files. These files
sometimes contain password data or, in the case of an e-commerce site,
transaction records," he said.

"Besides that, many database files and backups are usually saved in a
directory on the server that is normally not accessible via the Web,"
the ex-hacker said. "These databases can contain privacy sensitive
information that is now available for download through Publisher."

Netscape did not respond to inquiries.

A senior computer specialist at the FTC, however, said there was no
vulnerability and nothing was enabled on the Netscape Publisher page.

"It is disabled and has never been enabled," said Mike Frank at the
FTC. "It is part of Netscape Enterprise Server." He added that the FTC
runs Version 3.62.

Nothing is really available, except access to the online manual for
Publisher, Frank said.

"It just runs into a hole for me and tries to start a Java tool
editor," Frank said. But the Java applet did load in other instances
known to the IDG News Service.

The Publisher tool has never been enabled and FTC network
administrators never saw the page as a threat to security, Frank said.
The pages were, however, removed after the IDG News Service contacted
the FTC.

FBI.gov may be more vulnerable, though, according to the European
specialist. The site has an additional vulnerability that is not that
old and most people are unaware of it, the ex-hacker said. This would
allow a hacker to get full access to the FBI Web server.

"It is specific to the combination of Netscape Enterprise Server 3.5.1
on [Sun Microsystems] Solaris," the ex-hacker said. "I could write an
exploit within 10 minutes to get full access." The vulnerability is
known to experts as a password buffer overrun.

FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman said the agency had no comment.

Regardless of whether one can actually gain access to the sites, a
security expert with Global Integrity suggests that even giving
hackers the perception of an opening is not wise.

"Even if they can't [alter the site], it is inviting hacker traffic to
the site, especially to the FBI," said Mark Rasch, vice president of
cyber law for Global Integrity.



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