Advisory ID: cisco-amb-20091014-cup
http://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoAppliedMitigationBulletin/cisco-amb-20091014-cup
Revision 1.0
For Public Release 2009 October 14 16:00 UTC (GMT)
Contents
Cisco ResponseDevice-Specific Mitigation and Identification
Additional Information
Revision History
Cisco Security Procedures
Related Information
Cisco Response
This Applied Mitigation Bulletin is a companion document to the PSIRT Security Advisory Cisco Unified Presence Denial of Service Vulnerabilities and provides identification and mitigation techniques that administrators can deploy on Cisco network devices.
Vulnerability Characteristics
There are multiple denial of service (DoS) vulnerabilities in Cisco Unified Presence products. The following subsections summarize these vulnerabilities:
Network Flooding Vulnerability: This vulnerability can be exploited remotely without authentication and without end-user interaction. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may result in a DoS condition, causing the TimesTenD process to fail. Repeated attempts to exploit this vulnerability could result in a sustained DoS condition. The attack vectors for exploitation of this vulnerability are TCP port 16200 or TCP port 22794. This vulnerability has been assigned CVE identifier CVE-2009-2874.
Note: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires a TCP three-way handshake to be completed.
Network Connection Tracking Vulnerability: This vulnerability can be exploited remotely without authentication and without end-user interaction. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may result in a DoS condition. Repeated attempts to exploit this vulnerability could result in a sustained DoS condition. The attack vectors for exploitation of this vulnerability are any service that listens on a TCP socket of a vulnerable system. This vulnerability has been assigned CVE identifier CVE-2009-2052.
Please review the Port Usage Information for Cisco Unified Presence Release 7.0 document on the Cisco Unified Presence Compatibility Information page for the 7.x version of Cisco Unified Presence software. This document provides a list of TCP ports that the Cisco Unified Presence systems use for communication with applications and devices.
Information about vulnerable, unaffected, and fixed software is available in the PSIRT Security Advisory, which is available at the following link: http://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20091014-cup.
Mitigation Technique Overview
Cisco devices provide several countermeasures for these vulnerabilities. Administrators are advised to consider these protection methods to be general security best practices for infrastructure devices and the traffic that transits the network. This section of the document provides an overview of these techniques.
Cisco IOS® Software can provide effective means of exploit prevention using transit access control lists (tACLs). This protection mechanism filters and drops packets that are attempting to exploit these vulnerabilities.
Effective exploit prevention can also be provided by the Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliance, the Cisco PIX 500 Series Security Appliance, and the Firewall Services Module (FWSM) for Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series switches and Cisco 7600 Series routers using tACLs. This protection mechanism filters and drops packets that are attempting to exploit these vulnerabilities.
Cisco IOS NetFlow records can provide visibility into network-based exploitation attempts.
Cisco IOS Software, Cisco ASA and Cisco PIX security appliances, and FWSM firewalls can provide visibility through syslog messages and counter values displayed in the output from show commands.
Risk Management
Organizations are advised to follow their standard risk evaluation and mitigation processes to determine the potential impact of these vulnerabilities. Triage refers to sorting projects and prioritizing efforts that are most likely to be successful. Cisco has provided documents that can help organizations develop a risk-based triage capability for their information security teams. Risk Triage for Security Vulnerability Announcements and Risk Triage and Prototyping can help organizations develop repeatable security evaluation and response processes.
Device-Specific Mitigation and Identification
Caution: The effectiveness of any mitigation technique depends on specific customer situations such as product mix, network topology, traffic behavior, and organizational mission. As with any configuration change, evaluate the impact of this configuration prior to applying the change.
Specific information about mitigation and identification is available for these devices:
Cisco IOS Routers and Switches
Mitigation: Transit Access Control Lists
To protect the network from traffic that enters the network at ingress access points, which may include Internet connection points, partner and supplier connection points, or VPN connection points, administrators are advised to deploy transit access control lists (tACLs) to perform policy enforcement. Administrators can construct a tACL by explicitly permitting only authorized traffic to enter the network at ingress access points or permitting authorized traffic to transit the network in accordance with existing security policies and configurations. A tACL workaround cannot provide complete protection against these vulnerabilities when the attack originates from a trusted source address.
The tACL policy denies unauthorized Presence Engine packets on TCP port 16200 and TCP port 22794 that are sent to affected devices. In the following example, 192.168.60.0/24 is the IP address space that is used by the affected devices, and the host at 192.168.100.1 is considered a trusted source that requires access to the affected devices. Care should be taken to allow required traffic for routing and administrative access prior to denying all unauthorized traffic.
Additional information about tACLs is in Transit Access Control Lists: Filtering at Your Edge.
!-- Include explicit permit statements for trusted sources !-- that require access to the vulnerable ports ! access-list 150 permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 16200 access-list 150 permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 22794 ! !-- The following vulnerability-specific access control entries !-- (ACEs) can aid in identification of attacks ! access-list 150 deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 16200 access-list 150 deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 22794 ! !-- Permit or deny all other Layer 3 and Layer 4 traffic in !-- accordance with existing security policies and configurations ! !-- Explicit deny for all other IP traffic ! access-list 150 deny ip any any ! !-- Apply tACL to interfaces in the ingress direction ! interface GigabitEthernet0/0 ip access-group 150 in !
Note that filtering with an interface access list will elicit the transmission of ICMP unreachable messages back to the source of the filtered traffic. Generating these messages could have the undesired effect of increasing CPU utilization on the device. In Cisco IOS Software, ICMP unreachable generation is limited to one packet every 500 milliseconds by default. ICMP unreachable message generation can be disabled using the interface configuration command no ip unreachables. ICMP unreachable rate limiting can be changed from the default using the global configuration command ip icmp rate-limit unreachable interval-in-ms.
Identification: Transit Access Control Lists
After the administrator applies the tACL to an interface, the show ip access-lists command will identify the number of Presence Engine packets on TCP port 16200 and TCP port 22794 that have been filtered. Administrators are advised to investigate filtered packets to determine whether they are attempts to exploit these vulnerabilities. Example output for show ip access-lists 150 follows:
router#show ip access-lists 150
Extended IP access list 150
10 permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 16200 (529 matches)
20 permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 22794
30 deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 16200 (351 matches)
40 deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 22794 (97 matches)
50 deny ip any any
router#
In the preceding example, access list 150 has dropped the following packets that are received from an untrusted host or network:
- 351 Presence Engine packets on TCP port 16200 for ACE sequence 30
- 97 Presence Engine packets on TCP port 22794 for ACE sequence 40
For additional information about investigating incidents using ACE counters and syslog events, reference the Identifying Incidents Using Firewall and IOS Router Syslog Events Applied Intelligence white paper.
Administrators can use Embedded Event Manager to provide instrumentation when specific conditions are met, such as ACE counter hits. The Applied Intelligence white paper Embedded Event Manager in a Security Context provides additional details about how to use this feature.
Identification: Access List Logging
The log and log-input access control list (ACL) option will cause packets that match specific ACEs to be logged. The log-input option enables logging of the ingress interface in addition to the packet source and destination IP addresses and ports.
Caution: Access control list logging can be very CPU intensive and must be used with extreme caution. Factors that drive the CPU impact of ACL logging are log generation, log transmission, and process switching to forward packets that match log-enabled ACEs.
For Cisco IOS Software, the ip access-list logging interval interval-in-ms command can limit the effects of process switching induced by ACL logging. The logging rate-limit rate-per-second [except loglevel] command limits the impact of log generation and transmission.
The CPU impact from ACL logging can be addressed in hardware on the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series switches and Cisco 7600 Series routers with Supervisor Engine 720 or Supervisor Engine 32 using optimized ACL logging.
For additional information about the configuration and use of ACL logging, reference the Understanding Access Control List Logging Applied Intelligence white paper.
Cisco IOS NetFlow
Identification: Traffic Flow Identification Using NetFlow Records
Administrators can configure Cisco IOS NetFlow on Cisco IOS routers and switches to aid in the identification of traffic flows that may be attempts to exploit these vulnerabilities. Administrators are advised to investigate flows to determine whether they are attempts to exploit these vulnerabilities or whether they are legitimate traffic flows.
router#show ip cache flow
IP packet size distribution (90784136 total packets):
1-32 64 96 128 160 192 224 256 288 320 352 384 416 448 480
.000 .698 .011 .001 .004 .005 .000 .004 .000 .000 .003 .000 .000 .000 .000
512 544 576 1024 1536 2048 2560 3072 3584 4096 4608
.000 .001 .256 .000 .010 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000
IP Flow Switching Cache, 4456704 bytes
1885 active, 63651 inactive, 59960004 added
129803821 ager polls, 0 flow alloc failures
Active flows timeout in 30 minutes
Inactive flows timeout in 15 seconds
IP Sub Flow Cache, 402056 bytes
0 active, 16384 inactive, 0 added, 0 added to flow
0 alloc failures, 0 force free
1 chunk, 1 chunk added
last clearing of statistics never
Protocol Total Flows Packets Bytes Packets Active(Sec) Idle(Sec)
-------- Flows /Sec /Flow /Pkt /Sec /Flow /Flow
TCP-Telnet 11393421 2.8 1 48 3.1 0.0 1.4
TCP-FTP 236 0.0 12 66 0.0 1.8 4.8
TCP-FTPD 21 0.0 13726 1294 0.0 18.4 4.1
TCP-WWW 22282 0.0 21 1020 0.1 4.1 7.3
TCP-X 719 0.0 1 40 0.0 0.0 1.3
TCP-BGP 1 0.0 1 40 0.0 0.0 15.0
TCP-Frag 70399 0.0 1 688 0.0 0.0 22.7
TCP-other 47861004 11.8 1 211 18.9 0.0 1.3
UDP-DNS 582 0.0 4 73 0.0 3.4 15.4
UDP-NTP 287252 0.0 1 76 0.0 0.0 15.5
UDP-other 310347 0.0 2 230 0.1 0.6 15.9
ICMP 11674 0.0 3 61 0.0 19.8 15.5
IPv6INIP 15 0.0 1 1132 0.0 0.0 15.4
GRE 4 0.0 1 48 0.0 0.0 15.3
Total: 59957957 14.8 1 196 22.5 0.0 1.5
SrcIf SrcIPaddress DstIf DstIPaddress Pr SrcP DstP Pkts
Gi0/0 192.168.12.110 Gi0/1 192.168.60.163 06 092A 3F48 21
Gi0/0 192.168.11.230 Gi0/1 192.168.60.20 06 0C09 590A 19
Gi0/1 192.168.150.60 Gi0/0 10.89.16.226 06 0016 12CA 1
Gi0/0 192.168.11.131 Gi0/1 192.168.60.245 06 0B66 3F48 18
Gi0/0 192.168.10.17 Gi0/1 192.168.60.97 11 0B89 00A1 1
Gi0/0 192.168.13.7 Gi0/1 192.168.60.162 06 0914 3F48 5
Gi0/0 10.88.226.1 Gi0/1 192.168.202.22 11 007B 007B 1
Gi0/0 192.168.12.185 Gi0/1 192.168.60.239 11 0BD7 00A1 1
Gi0/0 192.168.41.86 Gi0/1 192.168.60.27 06 0B7B 590A 37
Gi0/0 10.89.16.226 Gi0/1 192.168.150.60 06 12CA 0016 1
router#
In the preceding example, there are multiple flows for Presence Engine packets on TCP port 16200 (hex value 3F48) and Presence Engine packets on TCP port 22794 (hex value 590A). Administrators are advised to compare these flows to baseline utilization for Presence Engine traffic sent on TCP port 16200 and TCP port 22794 and also investigate the flows to determine whether they are sourced from untrusted hosts or networks.
To view only the traffic flows for Presence Engine packets on TCP port 16200 (hex value 3F48) and TCP port 22794 (hex value 590A), the command show ip cache flow | include SrcIf|_06_.*(3F48|590A)_ will display the related TCP NetFlow records as shown here:
TCP Flows
router#show ip cache flow | include SrcIf|_06_.*(3F48|590A)_ SrcIf SrcIPaddress DstIf DstIPaddress Pr SrcP DstP Pkts Gi0/0 192.168.12.110 Gi0/1 192.168.60.163 06 092A 3F48 21 Gi0/0 192.168.11.230 Gi0/1 192.168.60.20 06 0C09 590A 19 Gi0/0 192.168.11.131 Gi0/1 192.168.60.245 06 0B66 3F48 18 Gi0/0 192.168.13.7 Gi0/1 192.168.60.162 06 0914 3F48 5 Gi0/0 192.168.41.86 Gi0/1 192.168.60.27 06 0B7B 590A 37 router#
Cisco ASA, PIX, and FWSM Firewalls
Mitigation: Transit Access Control Lists
To protect the network from traffic that enters the network at ingress access points, which may include Internet connection points, partner and supplier connection points, or VPN connection points, administrators are advised to deploy tACLs to perform policy enforcement. Administrators can construct a tACL by explicitly permitting only authorized traffic to enter the network at ingress access points or permitting authorized traffic to transit the network in accordance with existing security policies and configurations. A tACL workaround cannot provide complete protection against these vulnerabilities when the attack originates from a trusted source address.
The tACL policy denies unauthorized Presence Engine packets on TCP port 16200 and TCP port 22794 that are sent to affected devices. In the following example, 192.168.60.0/24 is the IP address space that is used by the affected devices, and the host at 192.168.100.1 is considered a trusted source that requires access to the affected devices. Care should be taken to allow required traffic for routing and administrative access prior to denying all unauthorized traffic.
Additional information about tACLs is in Transit Access Control Lists: Filtering at Your Edge.
!-- Include explicit permit statements for trusted sources !-- that require access on the vulnerable ports ! access-list tACL-Policy extended permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 16200 access-list tACL-Policy extended permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 22794 ! !-- The following vulnerability-specific access control entries !-- (ACEs) can aid in identification of attacks ! access-list tACL-Policy extended deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 16200 access-list tACL-Policy extended deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 22794 ! !-- Permit or deny all other Layer 3 and Layer 4 traffic in !-- accordance with existing security policies and configurations ! !-- Explicit deny for all other IP traffic ! access-list tACL-Policy extended deny ip any any ! !-- Apply tACL to interface(s) in the ingress direction ! access-group tACL-Policy in interface outside !
Identification: Transit Access Control Lists
After the tACL has been applied to an interface, administrators can use the show access-list command to identify the number of Presence Engine packets on TCP port 16200 and TCP port 22794 that have been filtered. Administrators are advised to investigate filtered packets to determine whether they are attempts to exploit these vulnerabilities. Example output for show access-list tACL-Policy follows:
firewall#show access-list tACL-Policy access-list tACL-Policy; 5 elements access-list tACL-Policy line 1 extended permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 16200 (hitcnt=119) access-list tACL-Policy line 2 extended permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 22794 (hitcnt=4) access-list tACL-Policy line 3 extended deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 16200 (hitcnt=95) access-list tACL-Policy line 4 extended deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 22794 (hitcnt=17) access-list tACL-Policy line 5 extended deny ip any any (hitcnt=8) firewall#
In the preceding example, access list tACL-Policy has dropped the following packets received from an untrusted host or network:
- 95 Presence Engine packets on TCP port 16200 for ACE line 3
- 17 Presence Engine packets on TCP port 22794 for ACE line 4
Identification: Firewall Access List Syslog Messages
Firewall syslog message 106023 will be generated for packets denied by an access control entry (ACE) that does not have the log keyword present. Additional information about this syslog message is in Cisco Security Appliance System Log Message - 106023.
Information about configuring syslog for the Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliance or the Cisco PIX 500 Series Security Appliance is in Monitoring the Security Appliance - Configuring and Managing Logs. Information about configuring syslog on the FWSM for Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series switches and Cisco 7600 Series routers is in Monitoring the Firewall Services Module.
In the following example, the show logging | grep regex command extracts syslog messages from the logging buffer on the firewall. These messages provide additional information about denied packets that could indicate potential attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities that are described in this document. It is possible to use different regular expressions with the grep keyword to search for specific data in the logged messages.
Additional information about regular expression syntax is in Using Modular Policy Framework - Creating a Regular Expression.
firewall#show logging | grep 106023
Oct 13 2009 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.18/2944
dst inside:192.168.60.191/16200 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
Oct 13 2009 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.200/2945
dst inside:192.168.60.33/16200 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
Oct 13 2009 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.99/2946
dst inside:192.168.60.240/22794 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
Oct 13 2009 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.100/2947
dst inside:192.168.60.115/16200 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
Oct 13 2009 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.88/2949
dst inside:192.168.60.38/22794 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
Oct 13 2009 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.175/2950
dst inside:192.168.60.250/16200 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
firewall#
In the preceding example, the messages logged for the tACL tACL-Policy show Presence Engine packets for TCP port 16200 and TCP port 22794 sent to the address block assigned to affected devices.
Additional information about syslog messages for ASA and PIX security appliances is in Cisco Security Appliance System Log Messages. Additional information about syslog messages for the FWSM is in Catalyst 6500 Series Switch and Cisco 7600 Series Router Firewall Services Module Logging System Log Messages.
For additional information about investigating incidents using syslog events, reference the Identifying Incidents Using Firewall and IOS Router Syslog Events Applied Intelligence white paper.
Additional Information
THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS AND DOES NOT IMPLY ANY KIND OF GUARANTEE OR WARRANTY, INCLUDING THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR USE. YOUR USE OF THE INFORMATION ON THE DOCUMENT OR MATERIALS LINKED FROM THE DOCUMENT IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. CISCO RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CHANGE OR UPDATE THIS DOCUMENT AT ANY TIME.
Revision History
|
Revision 1.0 |
2009-October-14 |
Initial public release |
Cisco Security Procedures
Complete information on reporting security vulnerabilities in Cisco products, obtaining assistance with security incidents, and registering to receive security information from Cisco, is available on Cisco's worldwide website at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/products_security_vulnerability_policy.html. This includes instructions for press inquiries regarding Cisco security notices. All Cisco security advisories are available at http://www.cisco.com/go/psirt.
Related Information
- Cisco Applied Mitigation Bulletins
- Cisco Security Intelligence Operations
- Cisco IOS NetFlow - Home Page on Cisco.com
- Cisco IOS NetFlow White Papers
- NetFlow Performance Analysis
- Cisco IOS Network Foundation Protection White Papers
- Cisco IOS Network Foundation Protection Presentations
- A Security-Oriented Approach to IP Addressing
- Cisco Firewall Products - Home Page on Cisco.com
- Cisco 6.x Intrusion Prevention System
- Cisco IPS 6.x Signature Downloads (registered customers only)
- Cisco IPS Signature Search Page
- Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)
