iPlanet security flaws unmasked

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: Nelson Murilo <nelson () pangeia com br>

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/23609.html

iPlanet security flaws unmasked
By John Leyden
Posted: 09/01/2002 at 17:19 GMT

A pair of vulnerabilities on widely-used Web server software from
iPlanet has been uncovered.

In the more serious case Netscape Enterprise Server 3.x and iPlanet
Web Server 4.x, running on the Windows operating system, can be
subjected to a denial of service attack. Hackers would need only to
enter a simple browser command in order to cause a vulnerable server
to crash.

For the technique to work Web publishing needs to be enabled but since
this is fairly common the problem is quiet serious for those that
running versions of the affected software on an NT platform. An
estimated 30 per cent of Netscape and iPlanet Web servers run on NT.

An advisory explaining the steps to take to fix the problem, which
involves disabling the ?wp-html-rend command, can be found here.  
[http://knowledgebase.iplanet.com/ikb/kb/articles/7764.html]

The second vulnerability, which affects wider varieties of Netscape
Enterprise Server and iPlanet Web Server, could allow an attacker to
make repeated authentication attempts if a server is configured to use
HTTP basic authentication.

This is not a severe weakness, because other security mechanisms (such
as using client certificates) should be in place. However it may allow
attackers to perform brute force password cracking on a site which has
no authentication pages and, as such, represents an unexpected avenue
of attack.

This bug affects Netscape Enterprise Server 2.x and 3.x as well as
iPlanet Web Server 4.x and 6.x on Solaris, AIX, Digital Unix, HP-UX,
IRIX, SunOS, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Linux.

The vulnerability represents a security configuration and iPlanet has
produced an advisory detailing the steps admins can take here.

Security firm ProCheckUp, which discovered both bugs, say the bugs
collectively affect iPlanet Web servers commonly used in e-commerce or
banking sites. But they are less serious than recent flaws uncovered
in Microsoft IIS.

"These [iPlanet bugs] are not root level exploits so they are not
nearly as bad as Microsoft bugs, which have resulted in the exposure
of credit card details," said Richard Brain, ProCheckUp's technical
director.

"At worst you could temporarily shut down a Web site with these bugs.
It's more an annoyance factor than anything," he added. ®



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