VoIP-Phones: Weakness in proccessing SIP-Notify-Messages
Tele-Consulting GmbH
security | networking | training
advisory 05/07/06
URL of this advisory:
http://pentest.tele-consulting.com/advisories/05_07_06_voip-phones.txt
Topic:
Weakness in implemenation of proccessing SIP-Notify-Messages
in VoIP-Phones.
Summary:
Due to ignoring the value of 'Call-ID' and even 'tag' and
'branch' while processing NOTIFY messages, VoIP-Hardphones
process spoofed status messages like "Messages-Waiting".
According to RFC 3265, Chap 3.2 every NOTIFY has to be em-
bedded in a subcription mechanism. If there ain't knowledge
of a subscription, the UAC has to respond with a "481
Subscription does not exist" message.
All tested phones processed the "Messages-Waiting" messages
without prior subscriptions anywhere.
Effect:
An attacker could send "Messages-Waiting: yes" messages to
all phones in a SIP-environment. Almost every phone proccesses
this status message and shows the user an icon or a blinking
display to indicate that new messages are available on the
voice box.
If the attacker sends this message to many recipients in a
huge environment, it would lead to server peaks as many users
will call the voice box at the same time.
Because there are no new voice messages as indicated by the
phone the users will call the support to fix this alleged server
problem.
All tested phones process the message with a resetted Call-ID,
'branch' and 'tag' sent by a spoofed IP-Adress.
Example:
Attacker spoofs the SIP-Proxys IP, here: 10.1.1.1
Victim 10.1.1.2
UDP-Message from Attacker to Victim
Session Initiation Protocol
Request-Line: NOTIFY sip:login@xxxxxxxx SIP/2.0
Message Header
Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 15.1.1.12:5060;branch=000000000000000
From: "asterisk" <sip:asterisk@xxxxxxxx>;tag=000000000
To: <sip:login@xxxxxxxx>
Contact: <sip:asterisk@xxxxxxxx>
Call-ID: 00000000000000@xxxxxxxx
CSeq: 102 NOTIFY
User-Agent: Asterisk PBX
Event: message-summary
Content-Type: application/simple-message-summary
Content-Length: 37
Message body
Messages-Waiting: yes\n
Voicemail: 3/2\n
Solution:
Phones who receive a NOTIFY message to which no subscription
exists, must send a "481 Subscription does not exist" response.
It should be possible to use the REGISTER request as a
non-SUBSCRIBE mechanism to set up a valid subscription.
This would reduce the possibility of an attack in a way, that
only with a sniffed and spoofed subcription such an attack would
be possible. Background is given by the way dialogs are des-
cribed in RFC 3261 and the sections 5.5 and 3.2 of RFC 3265.
Affected products:
Cisco 7940/7960
Grandstream BT 100
others will be tested in future
--
Tobias Glemser
TTTTTTT CCCC
TT C tglemser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx +49 (0)7032/97580 (fon)
TT C pentest.tele-consulting.com +49 (0)7032/74750 (fax)
TT C
TT C Tele-Consulting GmbH, Siedlerstrasse 22-24, 71126 Gaeufelden
TT CCCC security | networking | training