Ipswitch IMail Web Calendaring Arbitrary File Read Vulnerability

iDEFENSE Security Advisory 05.24.05
www.idefense.com/application/poi/display?id=242&type=vulnerabilities
May 24, 2005

I. BACKGROUND

Ipswitch Collaboration Suite (ICS) is a comprehensive communication and 
collaboration solution for Microsoft Windows with a customer base of 
over 53 million users. More information is available on the vendor's 
website:

     http://www.ipswitch.com/products/IMail_Server/index.html

II. DESCRIPTION

Remote exploitation of a directory traversal vulnerability in Ipswitch 
Inc.'s Imail Web Calendaring server allows attackers to read arbitrary 
files with System privileges. 

The problem specifically exists because of a flaw in the handling of 
requests for nonexistent javascript (jsp) files. By requesting a 
nonexistent jsp file followed by a question mark, several sequences of 
"..\" and then the path to a file on the system, an attacker can read 
arbitrary files remotely without any authentication. 

The following query demonstrates how the system's boot.ini file may be 
retrieved: 

GET /bla.jsp?\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\boot.ini HTTP/1.0
Connection: Close
Host: example.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)
Pragma: no-cache 

III. ANALYSIS

Successful exploitation allows remote attackers to retrieve arbitrary 
files from the target host. Exploitation does not require authentication

and does not require exploit code, as a user can simply type the 
malicious query in a web browser.

IV. DETECTION

iDEFENSE has confirmed the existence of this vulnerability in the latest

version of Ipswitch IMAIL, version 8.13. It is suspected that earlier 
versions are also vulnerable.

V. WORKAROUND

Limit access to the Web Calandaring server by allowing only trusted 
hosts to access TCP port 8484, the default port for Web Calandaring. If 
the Web Calandaring service is not required, disable it entirely.

VI. VENDOR RESPONSE

The vendor has released the following patch to fix this vulnerability:

ftp://ftp.ipswitch.com/Ipswitch/Product_Support/IMail/imail82hf2.exe

The associated vendor advisory can be found at:

http://www.ipswitch.com/support/imail/releases/imail_professional/im82hf
2.html

VII. CVE INFORMATION

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project has assigned the
name CAN-2005-1252 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

04/25/2005  Initial vendor notification
05/10/2005  Initial vendor response
05/24/2005  Public disclosure

IX. CREDIT

The discoverer of this vulnerability wishes to remain anonymous.

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X. LEGAL NOTICES

Copyright (c) 2005 iDEFENSE, Inc.

Permission is granted for the redistribution of this alert
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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.