Software Engineering Institute

VERITAS Backup Exec is a data backup and recovery solution with support for over the network backup.

An access validation vulnerability in Backup Exec for Windows allows remote attackers to access the Windows registry on the backup server with administrator privileges.

For more details on the vulnerability, see the iDefense security advisory:

http://www.idefense.com/application/poi/display?id=269&type=vulnerabilities.
For information about affected software versions and patching, please see the VERITAS Software Security Advisory.

VERITAS Software has released information about this and five other security issues affecting VERITAS Backup Exec for Windows and Netware Servers. For more information about this specific vulnerability please see:

VERITAS Software Security Advisory VX05-003 available from http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/276605.htm.
Information on the other vulnerabilities along with patch details can be found at:

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/277428.htm.
Note that this vulnerability is reintroduced in Backup Exec 9.1 for Windows by applying Hotfix 51 or Service Pack 3:

http://support.veritas.com/docs/276605.

An unauthenticated remote attacker can gain administrator access to the registry and then use this to gain complete administrative control of the backup server.

Apply a patch from the vendor. See http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/276605.htm for details.

Workaround

Use network and/or host based firewalls to limit connectivity to backup servers so that only trusted servers that require connectivity are allowed access. Server/workstations being backed up should only have access to the necessary ports for the back up to work correctly. At minimum, some basic protection should be in effect at the network boundaries. Individual installations may operate on nonstandard ports, which should be taken into account when developing network traffic filtering rules. We understand the following ports may be of particular interest: 10 000, 610x (e.g., 1, 3, 6).