Software Engineering Institute

The HTTP Security Servers component of Check Point Firewall-1 contains an HTTP parsing vulnerability that is triggered by sending an invalid HTTP request through the firewall. When Firewall-1 generates an error message in response to the invalid request, a portion of the input supplied by the attacker is included in the format string for a call to sprintf().

Researchers at Internet Security Systems have determined that it is possible to exploit this format string vulnerability to execute commands on the firewall. The researchers have also determined that this vulnerability can be exploited as a heap overflow, which would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code. In either case, the commands or code executed by the attacker would run with administrative privileges, typically "SYSTEM" or "root". For more information, please see the ISS advisory.

This vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on affected firewalls with administrative privileges, typically "SYSTEM" or "root".

Apply the patch from Check Point

Check Point has published a "Firewall-1 HTTP Security Server Update" to address this vulnerability. For more information, please see the Check Point bulletin at:

http://www.checkpoint.com/techsupport/alerts/security_server.html

Disable the affected components

Check Point has reported that their products are only affected by this vulnerability if the HTTP Security Servers feature is enabled. Therefore, affected sites may be able to limit their exposure to this vulnerability by disabling HTTP Security Servers.