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CERT Coordination Center

McAfee ASaP VirusScan service does not adequately validate input

Vulnerability Note VU#190267

Original Release Date: 2001-08-09 | Last Revised: 2003-04-14

Overview

A vulnerability exists in McAfee ASaP VirusScan that permits intruders to access files outside of the web root.

Description

Quoting from the McAfee ASaP VirusScan FAQ, McAfee ASaP VirusScan is "a web-based, managed and updated anti-virus service for the entire desktop environment." McAfee ASaP VirusScan allows hosts to share virus definitions, eliminating the need for all of the hosts to update their virus signature software from one central location. In order to make this possible, each host running this software also runs a lightweight http server that listens on 6515/TCP. Because of a vulnerability that exists in this HTTP server, a malicious user can connect to 6515/TCP and traverse the host file system to access any file on the system. For example:

HTTP://<Target IP Address>:6515/.../.../.../.../winnt/repair

Impact

A malicious user can connect to 6515/TCP and traverse the host file system, thus viewing any file on the target host with the privileges of the HTTP server, typically SYSTEM.

Solution

NAI has patched this vulnerability. The patch will be automatically disseminated to all affected hosts. Quoting from an NAI announcement regarding this vulnerability:
McAfee has taken action to address the vulnerability discovered in the VirusScan ASaP agent technology, which affected all users of VirusScan ASaP. McAfee has distributed the fix to all McAfee ASaP update sites for automatic distribution to end users. The fix will be downloaded and applied to end user systems in the normal course of updating that VirusScan ASaP performs each day. Any VirusScan ASaP agents that have performed an update since 03:30 Greenwich Mean Time on July 14, 2001 will have applied the fix.

Vendor Information

190267
 

CVSS Metrics

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References

Acknowledgements

This vulnerability was discovered by Aiden ORawe <ade245@hushmail.com> and reported to the CERT Coordination Center.

This document was written by Ian A. Finlay

Other Information

CVE IDs: CVE-2001-1144
Severity Metric: 30.60
Date Public: 2001-07-11
Date First Published: 2001-08-09
Date Last Updated: 2003-04-14 17:51 UTC
Document Revision: 44

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