RE: Pen testing a CVS server

["Lluis Mora" <llmora () sentryware com>]

Hi Alexandre, Bugsy:

The following applies to (at least) cvs 1.10. Have not tried it on
newer/older releases.

You can tell wether the CVS setup is using system passwords or a separate
CVS password file. If the response is:

    "no such user xxxx in CVSROOT/passwd"

then it is using a separate cvs password file. But if the "cvs login"
response is:

    "xxxx: no such user"

then it is using system passwords, e.g. /etc/passwd (or NIS, or LDAP or ...)

So, in your case Bugsy it seems the pentested server is using system
passwords and you could try a bruteforce attack for user accounts password.
You can restrict system passwords usage by setting the option "SystemAuth"
to "no" in your CVSROOT/config file.

Cheers,

Lluis
.

-----Mensaje original-----
De: Alexandre Carmel-Veilleux [mailto:saruman () northernhacking org]
Enviado el: domingo, 18 de mayo de 2003 21:20
Para: Bugsy
CC: pen-test () securityfocus com
Asunto: Re: Pen testing a CVS server


On Sun, May 18, 2003 at 07:17:09AM -0700, Bugsy wrote:
> Checking passwords
> cvs -d :pserver:root () host domain com:/wrong/cvs/root
> login
> Tells me if i got the root password right or not.

        Hmm, I've never been in any environement where CVS didn't have it's
own, separate, password and group files. So this should not yield an actual
user passwords. Assuming the password is different then the system one.

        I agree that the error messages should be terser in order to leak
less information, possibly with an n seconds timeout after an error.

Alex


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