NitroSecurity ESM 8.4.0a – Remote Code Execution

-- Product description: NitroView ESM is an enterprise-class security information and event management system that identifies, correlates, and remediates threats faster than any other SIEM on the market. -- Problem Description: During research it was found that perl module "ess.pm" is prone to remote code execution vulnerability due to lack of user input validation. -- Research Environment: The vulnerability was found and tested on ESM 8.4.0a (NitroSecurity 2.6.22.19-24nssmp64 GNU/Linux). -- Requirements: During the research "ESSPMDebug=1" option in "/usr/local/ess/CPConsoleServer.cfg" was required. No authentication in NitroSecurity ESM was required to successfuly conduct the attack. -- Technical Details: Because of the "system()" call in "ess.pm" module it's possible to send specially crafted request to NitroSecurity ESM web interface, which results in remote command execution. It's necessery to change IFS (Internal Field Separator) to exploit this vulnerability. Probably other methods also would work. -- Proof Of Concept: The following code was successfuly executed in testing environment (remember to change x.x.x.x to your NitroSecurity ESM IP address for testing purposes only): -- cut --

-- cut -- -- Impact: Remote code execution in the context of the user running web server. -- CVSS: 9, (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:C) -- Disclosure timeline: 20100922: initial contact with vendor 20100922: vendor response 20100923: detailed information about vulnerability and PoC sent to vendor 20100923: vulnerability confirmed by vendor 20101008: patch released by vendor 20101025: security advisory released -- Credits: This bug was found by s_n ;-p -- Greetz K&I, #dragonfly