iDEFENSE Security Advisory 10.20.05: Symantec Norton AntiVirus DiskMountNotify Local Privilege Escalation
Symantec Norton AntiVirus DiskMountNotify Local Privilege Escalation
iDEFENSE Security Advisory 10.20.05
www.idefense.com/application/poi/display?id=325&type=vulnerabilities
October 20, 2005
I. BACKGROUND
Symantec's Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh is an antivirus solution for
the Mac OS X environment. More information is available at the link
shown:
http://www.symantec.com/nav/nav_mac/
II. DESCRIPTION
Local exploitation of a design error in the DiskMountNotify component
of Symantec Corp.'s Norton Antivirus 9.0 for Macintosh may allow a user
to gain elevated privileges. The vulnerability specifically exists in
failing to specify an explicit PATH for the "/Library/Application
Support/Norton Solutions Support/Norton
AntiVirus/DiskMountNotify.app/Contents/MacOS/DiskMountNotify" binary.
This binary is setuid, meaning it will run with the permissions of the
owner, and is owned by the System Administrator, which is equivalent to
the Unix root user. A user can simply add a directory they control to
the beginning of the PATH environment variable and DiskMountNotify will
call 'ps' or 'grep' from that directory with root level privileges.
III. ANALYSIS
Successful exploitation allows a local attacker to execute arbitrary
commands as the System Administrator user. This allows complete system
compromise including the installation and removal of applications, and
ability to read and write any file on the system.
IV. DETECTION
iDEFENSE has confirmed this vulnerability exists in version 9.0.3 of
Norton Antivirus for Macintosh.
V. WORKAROUND
Unsetting the setuid bit from the "/Library/Application Support/Norton
Solutions Support/Norton
AntiVirus/DiskMountNotify.app/Contents/MacOS/DiskMountNotify" binary
will prevent exploitation, but may prevent automatic scanning on
mounting by non-administrator users.
VI. VENDOR RESPONSE
The vendor has released the following advisory for this issue:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/security/Content/2005.10.19.html
VII. CVE INFORMATION
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project has assigned the
name CAN-2005-2759 to this issue. This is a candidate for inclusion in
the CVE list (http://cve.mitre.org), which standardizes names for
security problems.
VIII. DISCLOSURE TIMELINE
08/31/2005 Initial vendor notification
08/31/2005 Initial vendor response
10/20/2005 Coordinated public disclosure
IX. CREDIT
DigitalMunition.com is credited with reporting this vulnerability.
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X. LEGAL NOTICES
Copyright (c) 2005 iDEFENSE, Inc.
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Disclaimer: The information in the advisory is believed to be accurate
at the time of publishing based on currently available information. Use
of the information constitutes acceptance for use in an AS IS condition.
There are no warranties with regard to this information. Neither the
author nor the publisher accepts any liability for any direct, indirect,
or consequential loss or damage arising from use of, or reliance on,
this information.