Cisco Applied Mitigation Bulletin: Identifying and Mitigating Exploitation of the Vulnerabilities in Unified Contact Center Express

Home / Cisco Security / Security Advisories

Identifying and Mitigating Exploitation of the Vulnerabilities in Unified Contact Center Express

Advisory ID: cisco-amb-20100609-uccx

http://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoAppliedMitigationBulletin/cisco-amb-20100609-uccx

Revision 1.1

For Public Release 2010 June 9 16:00 UTC (GMT)

Related Resources:

Cisco Response
Device-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 Vulnerabilities in Cisco Unified Contact Center Express and provides identification and mitigation techniques that administrators can deploy on Cisco network devices.

Vulnerability Characteristics

There are multiple vulnerabilities in Cisco Unified Contact Center Express. The following subsections summarize these vulnerabilities:

Cisco Unified Contact Center Express Computer Telephony Integration Server DoS: This vulnerability can be exploited remotely without authentication and without end-user interaction. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may cause the affected device to crash. Repeated attempts to exploit this vulnerability could result in a sustained DoS condition. The attack vector for exploitation is through packets using TCP port 42027.

This vulnerability has been assigned CVE identifier CVE-2010-1570.

Cisco Unified Contact Center Express Bootstrap Service Directory Traversal: This vulnerability can be exploited remotely without authentication and without end-user interaction. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may allow information disclosure, which enables an attacker to learn information about the affected device. The attack vector for exploitation is through packets using TCP port 6295.

This vulnerability has been assigned CVE identifier CVE-2010-1571.

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-20100609-uccx.

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 and the Firewall Services Module (FWSM) for Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series switches and Cisco 7600 Series routers using tACLs.

Effective use of Cisco Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) event actions provides visibility into and protection against attacks that attempt to exploit these vulnerabilities.

Cisco IOS NetFlow records can provide visibility into network-based exploitation attempts.

Cisco IOS Software, Cisco ASA, FWSM firewalls, and Cisco ACE Application Control Engine Appliance and Module 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 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
Cisco IOS NetFlow
Cisco ASA and FWSM Firewalls
Cisco Intrusion Prevention System

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 packets on TCP port 42027 and TCP port 6295 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 150 permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 42027
access-list 150 permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 6295

!
!-- 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 42027
access-list 150 deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 6295

!
!-- 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 packets on TCP port 42027 and TCP port 6295 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 42027
    20 permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 6295
    30 deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 42027 (7 matches)
    40 deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 6295 (13 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:

7 packets on TCP port 42027 for ACE line 30
13 packets on TCP port 6295 for ACE line 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         192.168.10.201  Gi0/1         192.168.60.102  06 4984 A42B     7
Gi0/0         192.168.11.54   Gi0/1         192.168.60.158  06 C911 1897     4
Gi0/1         192.168.150.60  Gi0/0         10.89.16.226    06 0016 12CA     1
Gi0/0         192.168.13.97   Gi0/1         192.168.60.28   11 0B3E 00A1     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  06 AAD7 A42B     2
Gi0/0         10.89.16.226    Gi0/1         192.168.150.60  11 12CA 00A1     1
router#

In the preceding example, there are multiple flows for TCP port 42027 (hex value A42B), and TCP port 6295 (hex value 1897).

To view only the traffic flows for packets on TCP port 42027 (hex value A42B), and TCP port 6295 (hex value 1897), the command show ip cache flow | include SrcIf|_06_.*(A42B|1897)_ will display the related TCP NetFlow records as shown here:

TCP Flows

router#show ip cache flow | include SrcIf|_06_.*(FF98|A42B|1897)_
SrcIf         SrcIPaddress     DstIf         DstIPaddress    Pr SrcP DstP  Pkts
Gi0/0         192.168.11.230   Gi0/1         192.168.60.20   06 0C09 1897     1
Gi0/0         192.168.11.131   Gi0/1         192.168.60.245  06 0B66 A42B    18
Gi0/0         192.168.13.7     Gi0/1         192.168.60.162  06 0914 1897     1
router#

Cisco ASA 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.

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 42027
access-list tACL-Policy extended permit tcp host 192.168.100.1
     192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 6295

!
!-- 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 42027
access-list tACL-Policy extended deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 6295

!
!-- 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 packets on TCP port 42027, and TCP port 6295 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 42027 (hitcnt=3)
access-list tACL-Policy line 2 extended permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 
     192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 6295 (hitcnt=9)
access-list tACL-Policy line 3 extended deny tcp any 
     192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 42027 (hitcnt=21)
access-list tACL-Policy line 4 extended deny tcp any 
     192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 6295 (hitcnt=6)
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:

21 packets on TCP port 42027 for ACE line 3
6 packets on TCP port 6295 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 ASA 5500 Series System Log Message, 8.2 - 106023.

Information about configuring syslog for the Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliance is in Monitoring - Configuring Logging. 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 Creating a Regular Expression.

firewall#show logging | grep 106023
  June 09 2010 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.200/28901 
         dst inside:192.168.60.33/42027 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
  June 09 2010 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.100/28903 
         dst inside:192.168.60.115/6295 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
  June 09 2010 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.88/28904 
         dst inside:192.168.60.38/6295 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
firewall#

In the preceding example, the messages logged for the tACL tACL-Policy show packets for TCP port 42027, and TCP port 6295 sent to the address block assigned to affected devices.

Additional information about syslog messages for ASA security appliances is in Cisco ASA 5500 Series System Log Messages, 8.2. 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.

Cisco Intrusion Prevention System

Mitigation: Cisco IPS Signature Event Actions

Administrators can use Cisco Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) appliances and services modules to provide threat detection and help prevent attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities that are described in this document. Beginning with signature update S495 for sensors running Cisco IPS version 6.x and greater, the Cisco Unified Contact Center Bootstrap Service Directory Traversal vulnerability can be detected by signature 26021/0 (Signature Name: Cisco UCCX Information Disclosure Vulnerability). Signature 26021/0 is enabled by default, triggers a Medium severity event, has a signature fidelity rating (SFR) of 75, and is configured with a default event action of produce-alert.

Signature 26021/0 fires when a single packet sent using TCP port 6295 is detected. Firing of this signature may indicate a potential exploit of these vulnerabilities.

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 1.1	2010-JUNE-11	Added signature information.
Revision 1.0	2010-JUNE-09	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/web/about/security/psirt/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.

Cisco Security

Identifying and Mitigating Exploitation of the Vulnerabilities in Unified Contact Center Express

Advisory ID: cisco-amb-20100609-uccx

Revision 1.1

For Public Release 2010 June 9 16:00 UTC (GMT)

Related Resources:

Contents

Cisco Response

Vulnerability Characteristics

Mitigation Technique Overview

Risk Management

Device-Specific Mitigation and Identification

Mitigation: Transit Access Control Lists

Identification: Transit Access Control Lists

Identification: Access List Logging

Identification: Traffic Flow Identification Using NetFlow Records

Mitigation: Transit Access Control Lists

Identification: Transit Access Control Lists

Identification: Firewall Access List Syslog Messages

Mitigation: Cisco IPS Signature Event Actions

Additional Information

Revision History

Cisco Security Procedures

Related Information