[NT] Motorola netOctopus Agent MSR Write Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

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Motorola netOctopus Agent MSR Write Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
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SUMMARY

<http://www.netopia.com/software/products/netoctopus/> Motorola
netOctopus is "an asset management agent. It is used to deploy software,
monitor performance, and configure client machines from a central
administrative console". Local exploitation of a privilege escalation
vulnerability in Motorola Inc.'s netOctopus could allow an attacker to
execute arbitrary code in kernel context.

DETAILS

Vulnerable Systems:
* netOctopus version 5.1.2 build 1011 with nantsys.sys driver version
5.0.0.115

The netOctopus Agent software is supposed to be installed on all client
machines. It includes a driver, nantsys.sys, that is loaded at system boot
time. This driver exposes a device interface, \\.\NantSys, that is
writable by all users.

This driver includes functionality for reading and writing arbitrary CPU
Model Specific Registers (MSRs). Changing MSR values allows tuning of
various low level CPU operations. By modifying SYSENTER_EIP_MSR, is is
possible to execute arbitrary attacker supplied code in kernel context by
executing a sysenter instruction.

Analysis:
Exploitation of this vulnerability results in the execution of arbitrary
code in kernel context. Unsuccessful attempts may result in a system
crash. However, due to the nature of the vulnerability exploitation is
extremely reliable.

Workaround:
Remove write permissions for the Everyone group for the \\.\NantSys
device. This can be accomplished by using a tool like WinObj. This will
prevent regular users from writing to the device.

Vendor response:
To address this vulnerability, Motorola Inc. has made a script available
to remove the affected driver from the system. For more information,
consult their advisory at the following URL.

<http://www.netopia.com/support/software/technotes/netoctopus/Removing_the_nantsys_Driver.pdf> http://www.netopia.com/support/software/technotes/netoctopus/Removing_the_nantsys_Driver.pdf

<http://www.netopia.com/support/software/technotes/netoctopus/removeNantsys.vbs> http://www.netopia.com/support/software/technotes/netoctopus/removeNantsys.vbs

CVE Information:
<http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2007-5761>
CVE-2007-5761

Disclosure Timeline:
09/07/2007 - Initial vendor notification
09/07/2007 - Initial vendor response
01/07/2008 - Coordinated public disclosure

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The information has been provided by <mailto:labs-no-reply@idefense.co>
iDefense Labs.
The original article can be found at:
<http://labs.idefense.com/intelligence/vulnerabilities/display.php?id=636>

http://labs.idefense.com/intelligence/vulnerabilities/display.php?id=636

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