PTT SECURITY ADVISORY
DATE: 08-02-2005
AUTHOR: THOMAS LIAM ROMANIS
CURRENT EMPLOYER: Echelon Ltd
VENDOR: Sun
PRODUCT: Sun AnswerBook2
VERSION(S) TESTED: 1.4.4 on Solaris 8.0 (Sparc)
TITLE: Multiple issues in Sun Answerbook2 [Full Disclosure].
Summary.
A number of issues have been identified in Sun Answerbook2. The first is AN xss
issue in the Sun Answerbook2 Search function and the other is an attack vector
issue in the administrative function for viewing Access and Error log files.
Detail.
1. XSS issue in Sun Answerbook2 Search function.[CAN-2005-0548]
This issue could be used for misinformation purposes but probably little else.
As a result the impact of this issue is likely to be low.
http://192.168.197.91:8888/ab2/Help_C/@Ab2HelpSearch?scope=HELP&DwebQuery=%3Cscript%3Ealert%28%22hello%22%
29%3C%2Fscript%3E&Search=+Search+
It is possible that Sun AnswerBook2 could be hosted on an Internet facing Web
Server. In this case, depending on the function of the server, a more serious
exposure could result.
2. Administration Attack Vector issue.[CAN-2005-0549]
When the Answerbook2 administrator opts to view the Access log file (
/var/log/ab2/logs/access-8888.log) or Error log file (
/var/log/ab2/logs/access-8888.log) the file is displayed as HTML rather than
plain text. As a result a number of different methods could be used to launch
attacks against the Answerbook2 administrator. For example, If an XSS attempt
has been made on another part of the application, even if it was not
immediately successful, it will execute during the display of the Access or
Error log files. Thus attacks could be waged via browser vulnerabilities
against the Sun AnswerBook2 Administrator who may have escalated privileges on
the host operating system.
http://192.168.197.91:8888/ab2/@Ab2Admin?command=view_access
Remedial Action.
The AnswerBook2 server is no longer shipped as of Solaris 9. The Solaris 9
Release Notes list the feature
removal here:
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/806-5195/6je7ls079?s=t&a=view
Thus Solaris 9 and 10 are not impacted by this issue. Solaris 7 and 8 are the
other currently supported
releases of Solaris and they are impacted by this issue. Sun isn't planning on
producing further patches for
the AnswerBook2 server on Solaris 7 and 8 at this time. The Sun Alert
recommends disabling AnswerBook2 and
using other sources of documentation, namely the Solaris Documentation CD and
online formats at
http://docs.sun.com.
The Alert Released by Sun can be found at:
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-26-57737-1
