McAfee VirusScan Privilege Escalation Vulnerability [iDEFENSE]
McAfee VirusScan Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
iDEFENSE Security Advisory 09.14.04:
I. BACKGROUND
McAfee VirusScan is a popular real-time virus protection application.
For more information see http://www.mcafee.com.
II. DESCRIPTION
Local exploitation of a design error vulnerability in Networks
Associates Technology Inc.'s McAfee VirusScan could allow attackers to
obtain increased privileges.
The problem specifically exists because SYSTEM privileges are not
dropped when accessing the "System Scan" properties from the System
Tray applet. The vulnerability can be exploited by right-clicking the
System Tray icon, choosing "Properties", selecting "System Scan",
then, from the "Report" tab, selecting "Browse...". The opened file
selected can be abused by navigating to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\,
right-clicking cmd.exe, then selecting "Open"; doing so spawns a
command shell with SYSTEM privileges.
III. ANALYSIS
Exploitation allows local users to obtain Local System privileges,
thereby providing them with complete control of the affected system.
IV. DETECTION
McAfee VirusScan version 4.5.1 running on Windows 2000 Professional
and Windows XP Professional operating systems is vulnerable. It is
suspected that McAfee VirusScan 4.5 is also vulnerable.
V. WORKAROUND
iDEFENSE is currently unaware of any workarounds for this issue.
VI. VENDOR FIX
The vendor does not appear to have provided a patch for this issue.
However, due to design changes in the GUI, this vulnerability does not
appear to exist in later versions of the product.
VII. CVE INFORMATION
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project has assigned the
names CAN-2004-0831 to these issues. This is a candidate for inclusion
in the CVE list (http://cve.mitre.org), which standardizes names for
security problems.
VIII. DISCLOSURE TIMELINE
08/12/2004 Initial vendor notification - no response
08/12/2004 iDEFENSE clients notified
09/02/2004 Secondary vendor notification - no response
09/14/2004 Public disclosure
Ian Vitek is credited with this discovery.