SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab Security Advisory < 20130605-0 >

          title: Multiple vulnerabilities in CTERA Portal
        product: CTERA Portal

vulnerable version: 3.1
fixed version: 3.2
impact: Critical
homepage: http://www.ctera.com
found: 2013-02-04
by: Stefan Streichsbier
SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab

Vendor description:

CTERA Portal is a scalable cloud service delivery platform that enables the
creation, delivery and management of cloud storage applications, including
file sharing and sync, backup, and mobile collaboration.

Full details:
http://www.ctera.com/products/products/ctera-portal-cloud-storage-delivery

Business recommendation:

By exploiting the XXE vulnerability, an unauthenticated attacker can get full
read access to the filesystem of CTERA portal as root user and thus obtain
sensitive information such as the root password hash from the /etc/shadow
file, which, after being cracked in a short time, was revealed to be quite
simple and presumably the same for all CTERA Portal installations.
Furthermore, by default it is possible to login as the root user using SSH,
which potentially allows attackers to fully take over unsecured CTERA Portal
installations.

The recommendation of SEC Consult is to immediately upgrade to version 3.2
and secure the SSH service by only allowing public key authentication.

Vulnerability overview/description:

1.) Outdated Tomcat Version

The installed version of tomcat is outdated and several vulnerabilities are
publicly known for it.

2.) Bypass of Temporary Account Locking

The main login functionality provides a security feature that temporarily
locks the account after 5 failed authentication attempts. This can be
bypassed by using the WEBDAV functionality which relies on HTTP Basic
Authentication.

3.) Permanent Cross Site Scripting

The webdav functionality allows embedding of Javascript code in file names.
This can be misused to e.g. upload a file with a specifically crafted filename
to a public shared folder that becomes accessible for each user of a certain
group. If any other user accesses this shared public folder over the web
interface that specific user account can be taken over.

4.) XML External Entity Injection

The used XML parser is resolving XML external entities which allows attackers
to read files and send requests to systems on the internal network
(e.g port scanning). The risk of this vulnerability is dramatically
increased by the fact that it can be exploited by anonymous users without
existing accounts and that the Tomcat server and thus the XML parser is
running as root user. Attackers are able to read the root password hash from
/etc/shadow and crack it within minutes. If the default SSH service
configuration has not been secured, attackers can subsequently login to the
CTERA portal via SSH as the root user and fully take over control of the
system.

Proof of concept:

Due to the potential impact, no proof-of-concepts are disclosed.

Vulnerable / tested versions:

3.1

Vendor contact log:

2013-02-26: Affected client sent report with vulnerability descriptions to
vendor.
2013 March-May: Vulnerabilities have been analysed and a timeline for
releasing patches has been scheduled. First round of patches has been
published.
2013-06-05: SEC Consult releases coordinated security advisory.

Solution:

Upgrade to version 3.2 and configure public-key-only authentication for SSH.

Advisory URL:

https://www.sec-consult.com/en/Vulnerability-Lab/Advisories.htm

SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab

SEC Consult
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EOF Stefan Streichsbier / @2013