Identifying and Mitigating Exploitation of the Cisco Digital Media Manager Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
Advisory ID: cisco-amb-20120118-dmm
http://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoAppliedMitigationBulletin/cisco-amb-20120118-dmm
Revision 1.0
For Public Release 2012 January 18 16:00 UTC (GMT)
Related Resources: |  |  |
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 Digital Media Manager Privilege Escalation Vulnerability and provides identification and mitigation techniques that administrators can deploy on Cisco network devices.
Vulnerability Characteristics
The Cisco Digital Media Manager contains a vulnerability when it processes HTTPS IP version 4 (IPv4) packets. This vulnerability can be exploited remotely with authentication and without end-user interaction. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow privilege escalation. The attack vector for exploitation is through HTTPS IPv4 packets using TCP port 8443.
This vulnerability has been assigned Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) identifier CVE-2012-0329.
Vulnerability Overview
Information about vulnerable, unaffected, and fixed software is available in the Cisco Security Advisory, which is available at the following link: http://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20120118-dmm.Mitigation Technique Overview
Cisco devices provide several countermeasures for this vulnerability. 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 this vulnerability.
Effective exploit prevention can also be provided by the Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliance, Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series ASA Services Module (ASASM), 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 this vulnerability.
Cisco IOS NetFlow records can provide visibility into network-based exploitation attempts.
Cisco IOS Software, Cisco ASA, Cisco ASASM, Cisco 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.
The Cisco Security Manager can also provide visibility through incidents, queries, and event reporting.
Risk Management
Organizations are advised to follow their standard risk evaluation and mitigation processes to determine the potential impact of this vulnerability. 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
- Cisco IOS NetFlow and Cisco IOS Flexible NetFlow
- Cisco ASA, Cisco ASASM, and Cisco FWSM Firewalls
- Cisco Security Manager
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 HTTPS IPv4 packets on TCP port 8443 that are sent to affected devices. In the following example, 192.168.60.0/24 represents 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 protocol and port ! access-list 150 permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 8443 ! !-- The following vulnerability-specific access control entry !-- (ACE) can aid in identification of attacks ! access-list 150 deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 8443 ! !-- 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 ! !-- Create the corresponding IPv6 tACL ! 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 commands 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 HTTPS IPv4 packets on TCP port 8443 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 8443
20 deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 0.0.0.255 eq 8443 (17 matches)
30 deny ip any any
router#
In the preceding example, access list 150 has dropped 17 HTTPS packets on TCP port 8443 for access control list entry (ACE) line 20.
For additional information about investigating incidents using ACE counters and syslog events, reference the Identifying Incidents Using Firewall and IOS Router Syslog Events Cisco Security Intelligence Operations white paper.
Administrators can use Embedded Event Manager to provide instrumentation when specific conditions are met, such as ACE counter hits. The Cisco Security Intelligence Operations 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 IPv4 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 Cisco Security white paper.
Cisco IOS NetFlow and Cisco IOS Flexible NetFlow
Identification: IPv4 Traffic Flow Identification Using Cisco IOS NetFlow
Administrators can configure Cisco IOS NetFlow on Cisco IOS routers and switches to aid in the identification of IPv4 traffic flows that may be attempts to exploit this vulnerability. Administrators are advised to investigate flows to determine whether they are attempts to exploit this vulnerability 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 0984 20FB 1
Gi0/0 192.168.11.54 Gi0/1 192.168.60.158 06 0911 20FB 3
Gi0/1 192.168.150.60 Gi0/0 10.89.16.226 11 0016 12CA 1
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 0BD7 20FB 7
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 HTTPS on TCP port 8443 (hex value 20FB).
As shown in the following example, to view only the HTTPS packets on TCP port 8443 (hex value 20FB), use the show ip cache flow | include SrcIf|_06_.*20FB command to display the related Cisco NetFlow records:
TCP Flowsrouter#show ip cache flow | include SrcIf|_06_.*20FB SrcIf SrcIPaddress DstIf DstIPaddress Pr SrcP DstP Pkts Gi0/0 192.168.12.110 Gi0/1 192.168.60.163 06 092A 20FB 6 Gi0/0 192.168.11.230 Gi0/1 192.168.60.20 06 0C09 20FB 1 Gi0/0 192.168.11.131 Gi0/1 192.168.60.245 06 0B66 20FB 18 router#
Identification: IPv4 Traffic Flow Identification Using Cisco Flexible NetFlow
Introduced in Cisco IOS Software Releases 12.2(31)SB2 and 12.4(9)T, Cisco IOS Flexible NetFlow improves original Cisco NetFlow by adding the capability to customize the traffic analysis parameters for the administrator's specific requirements. Original Cisco NetFlow uses a fixed seven tuples of IP information to identify a flow, whereas Cisco IOS Flexible NetFlow allows the flow to be user defined. It facilitates the creation of more complex configurations for traffic analysis and data export by using reusable configuration components.
The following example output is from a Cisco IOS device that is running a version of Cisco IOS Software in the 15.1T train. Although the syntax will be almost identical for the 12.4T and 15.0 trains, it may vary slightly depending on the actual Cisco IOS release being used. In the following configuration, Cisco IOS Flexible NetFlow will collect information on interface GigabitEthernet0/0 for incoming IPv4 flows based on source IPv4 address, as defined by the match ipv4 source address key field statement. Cisco IOS Flexible NetFlow will also include nonkey field information about source and destination IPv4 addresses, protocol, ports (if present), ingress and egress interfaces, and packets per flow.
! !-- Configure key and nonkey fields !-- in the user-defined flow record ! flow record FLOW-RECORD-ipv4 match ipv4 source address collect ipv4 protocol collect ipv4 destination address collect transport source-port collect transport destination-port collect interface input collect interface output collect counter packets ! !-- Configure the flow monitor to !-- reference the user-defined flow !-- record ! flow monitor FLOW-MONITOR-ipv4 record FLOW-RECORD-ipv4 ! !-- Apply the flow monitor to the interface !-- in the ingress direction ! interface GigabitEthernet0/0 ip flow monitor FLOW-MONITOR-ipv4 input
The Cisco IOS Flexible NetFlow flow output is as follows:
router#show flow monitor FLOW-MONITOR-ipv4 cache format table
Cache type: Normal
Cache size: 4096
Current entries: 6
High Watermark: 1
Flows added: 9181
Flows aged: 9175
- Active timeout ( 1800 secs) 9000
- Inactive timeout ( 15 secs) 175
- Event aged 0
- Watermark aged 0
- Emergency aged 0
IPV4 SRC ADDR ipv4 dst addr trns src port trns dst port intf input intf output pkts ip prot
=============== =============== ============= ============= ============= ============== ======= =======
192.168.10.201 192.168.60.102 1456 8443 Gi0/0 Gi0/1 1128 6
192.168.150.60 10.89.16.226 2567 443 Gi0/0 Gi0/1 13 6
192.168.13.97 192.168.60.28 3451 8443 Gi0/0 Gi0/1 1 6
10.88.226.1 192.168.202.22 2678 443 Gi0/0 Gi0/1 10567 6
10.89.16.226 192.168.150.60 3562 80 Gi0/0 Gi0/1 30012 6
To view only the HTTPS on TCP port 8443, use the show flow monitor FLOW-MONITOR-ipv4 cache format table | include IPV4 DST ADDR |_6_.*20FB_ command to display the related NetFlow records.
For more information about Cisco IOS Flexible NetFlow, refer to Flexible Netflow Configuration Guide, Cisco IOS Release 15.1M&T and Cisco IOS Flexible NetFlow Configuration Guide, Release 12.4T.
Cisco ASA, Cisco ASASM, and Cisco 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 this vulnerability when the attack originates from a trusted source address.
The tACL policy denies unauthorized HTTPS IPv4 packets on TCP port 8443 that are sent to affected devices. In the following example, 192.168.60.0/24 represents 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 protocol and port ! access-list tACL-Policy extended permit tcp host 192.168.100.1 192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 8443 ! !-- The following vulnerability-specific access control entry !-- (ACE) can aid in identification of attacks ! access-list tACL-Policy extended deny tcp any 192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 8443 ! !-- 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 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 HTTPS IPv4 packets on TCP port 8443 that have been filtered. Administrators are advised to investigate filtered packets to determine whether they are attempts to exploit this vulnerability. Example output for show access-list tACL-Policy follows:
firewall#show access-list tACL-Policy
access-list tACL-Policy; 3 elements; name hash: 0x3452703d
access-list tACL-Policy line 1 extended permit tcp host 192.168.100.1
192.168.60.0 255.255.255.0 eq 8443 (hitcnt=31)
access-list tACL-Policy line 2 extended deny tcp any 192.168.60.0
255.255.255.0 eq 8443 (hitcnt=8)
access-list tACL-Policy line 3 extended deny ip any any (hitcnt=8)
In the preceding example, access list tACL-Policy has dropped 8 HTTPS packets on TCP port 8443 received from an untrusted host or network. In addition, syslog message 106023 can provide valuable information, which includes the source and destination IP address, the source and destination port numbers, and the IP protocol for the denied packet.
In addition, syslog message 106023 can provide valuable information, which includes the source and destination IP address, the source and destination port numbers, and the IP protocol for the denied packet.
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 Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series ASA Services Module is in 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
Jan 18 2012 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.18/2944
dst inside:192.168.60.191/8443 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
Jan 18 2012 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.200/2945
dst inside:192.168.60.33/8443 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
Jan 18 2012 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.99/2946
dst inside:192.168.60.240/8443 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
Jan 18 2012 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.100/2947
dst inside:192.168.60.115/8443 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
Jan 18 2012 00:15:13: %ASA-4-106023: Deny tcp src outside:192.0.2.88/2949
dst inside:192.168.60.38/8443 by access-group "tACL-Policy"
firewall#
In the preceding example, the messages logged for the tACL tACL-Policy show HTTPS packets for TCP port 8443 sent to the address block assigned to the affected devices.
Additional information about syslog messages for Cisco ASA Series Adaptive Security Appliances is in Cisco ASA 5500 Series System Log Messages, 8.2. Additional information about syslog messages for Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series ASA Services Module is in the Analyzing Syslog Messages section of the Cisco ASASM CLI Configuration Guide. Additional information about syslog messages for the Cisco 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 Cisco Security Intelligence Operations white paper.
Cisco Security Manager
Identification: Cisco Security Manager
Cisco Security Manager, Event Viewer
Beginning in software version 4.0, Cisco Security Manager can collect syslogs from Cisco firewalls and provides the Event Viewer, which can query for events that are related to the vulnerability that is described in this document.
Using the following filters in the Firewall Denied Events predefined view in the Event Viewer provides all captured Cisco firewall access list deny syslog messages that could indicate potential attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities that are described in this document.
- Use the Destination event filter to filter network objects that contain the IP address space that is used by the affected devices (for example, IPv4 address range 192.168.60.0/24)
- Use the Destination Service event filter to filter objects that contain TCP port 8443
An Event Type ID filter can be used with the Firewall Denied Events predefined view in the Event Viewer to filter the syslog IDs shown in the following list to provide all captured Cisco firewall deny syslog messages that could indicate potential attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities that are described in this document:
- ASA-4-106023 (ACL deny)
For more information about Cisco Security Manager Events, refer to the Filtering and Querying Events section of the Cisco Security Manager User Guide.
Identification: Event Management System Partner Events
Cisco works with industry-leading Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) companies through the Cisco Developer Network. This partnership helps Cisco deliver validated and pretested SIEM systems that address business concerns such as long-term log archiving and forensics, heterogeneous event correlation, and advanced compliance reporting. Security Information and Event Management partner products can be leveraged to collect events from Cisco devices and then query the collected events for the incidents created by deny syslog messages from firewalls that could indicate potential attempts to exploit the vulnerability that is described in this document. The queries can be made by Syslog ID as shown in the following list:
- ASA-4-106023 (ACL deny)
For more information about SIEM partners, refer to the Security Management System website.
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 | 2012-January-18 | 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.
Related Information
- Cisco Applied Mitigation Bulletins
- Cisco Security Intelligence Operations
- Cisco Security IntelliShield Alert Manager Service
- Cisco Guide to Harden Cisco IOS Devices
- Cisco IOS NetFlow - Home Page on Cisco.com
- Cisco IOS NetFlow White Papers
- NetFlow Performance Analysis
- Cisco Network Foundation Protection White Papers
- Cisco Network Foundation Protection Presentations
- A Security-Oriented Approach to IP Addressing
- Securing Tool Command Language on Cisco IOS
- Cisco Firewall Products - Home Page on Cisco.com
- Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series ASA Services Module
- Cisco Security Manager
- Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)