USSR & eEye DS Present: Infoseek Ultraseek 3.1 Remote Buffer Overflow USSR Advisory Code: 20 eEye DS Advisory Code: AD19991215 Release Date: December 15, 1999 Systems Affected: Infoseek Ultraseek 2.1 to 3.1 and possibly others. The Opener: T1 Internet Connection: $1,000/month Dell PowerEdge 4350 Server: $4,307 10k Doc. license for Ultraseek 3.1: $4,995 Brand new office in silicon valley: $10,000/month The look on your CEO's face when you get hacked: Priceless. About The Software: Ultraseek is Infoseek Corporation's search engine software. The power and flexibility of Ultraseek allow it to be used by a variety of business's. >From the small mom and pop shops to companies even as large as Infoseek themselves. You've heard of go.com by now, haven't you? Description: This advisory, although a rather nasty one, will be pretty small. We are not going to get into the mechanics of buffer overflows since the subject has been talked about a lot. If you would like to learn more about what a buffer overflow is we suggest the following links: http://www.l0pht.com/advisories/bufero.html http://arden.iss.net/~msells/docs/smashstack.txt http://www.cultdeadcow.com/cDc_files/cDc-351/ http://www.beavuh.org/dox/win32_oflow.txt By default the Ultraseek search engine listens on port 8765 and provides a HTTP interface to allow internet/intranet users to search a server for documents pertaining to their search keywords. To identify a vulnerable server you would do the following: C:\>telnet www.example.com 8765 send-> HEAD / HTTP/1.0 recv-> HTTP/1.0 200 OK recv-> Server: Ultraseek/3.1 Python/1.5.1 recv-> Date: Thu, XX Dec 1999 23:59:42 GMT recv-> Content-type: text/html recv-> Content-length: 0 Ultraseek 3.1 is the current version of Ultraseek as of the writing of this advisory. We have tested versions as old as 2.1. So while we are not positive, we are pretty sure every version of Ultraseek prior to 3.1 is vulnerable. The overflow occurs in the HTTP Get command. To DoS (Denial of Service) the server you would do the following: C:\>telnet www.example.com 8765 GET /[overflow]/ HTTP/1.0 At this point one of the two pyseekd.exe (Ultraseek Server Process) will drop and reinitialize. Since it is a service you will never get an on screen memory error. Also you will not even really notice the process drop and reload but if you look closely when you DoS the server one of the two pyseekd.exe process's will now have a new PID. This is just like any typical buffer overflow and it is exploitable. To download a proof of concept exploit, go to: http://www.ussrback.com/ http://www.eeye.com/ Note: The example will just create a file called ussreeye.txt in whatever the current root is. This exploit has only been tested against Ultraseek 2.1 for NT Service Pack 5 and NT Service Pack 6. Please do not send us eMail saying you could not get it to work or things of that nature. If you can't fix it yourself then most likely you do not need to be using it in the first place. What gets logged you ask? Well in the application event log you will see a Warning with the following information: "Ultraseek Server: Warning: restarted 3.1.4". In the Ultraseek http access logs (C:\Program Files\Infoseek\UltraseekServer\data\logs) nothing gets logged. So when all is said and done unless you have a router log to match the event log time with... your left with no way of knowing who did the dirty deed. Once again a web service, just like IIS, fails to log a command before it processes. Any service that takes commands needs to log the command first and then process it. That way unless there is an overflow in the logging process we will always know what IP performed the attack. This advisory was made possible by a joint effort of USSR (Underground Security Systems Research) and eEye Digital Security. Do you do the w00w00? This advisory also acts as part of w00giving. This is another contribution to w00giving for all you w00nderful people out there. You do know what w00giving is don't you? http://www.w00w00.org/advisories.html Vendor Status: We would like to thank Infoseek for the wonderful way they handled this advisory. The process went rather perfect, if there is such a thing in the security world. Fix: http://software.infoseek.com/products/ultraseek/upgrade_nt.htm ftp://ftp.infoseek.com/pub/software/ultraseek-3.1.5.exe Related Links: eEye Digital Security http://www.eEye.ccom Retina - The Network Security Scanner http://www.eEye.com/retina/ Underground Security Systems Research http://www.ussrback.com CrunchSp http://www.ussrback.com/products.html Greetings: Attrition, w00w00, beavuh, Rhino9, ADM, L0pht, HNN, Technotronic and Wiretrip. Copyright (c) 1998-1999 eEye Digital Security Permission is hereby granted for the redistribution of this alert electronically. It is not to be edited in any way without express consent of eEye. If you wish to reprint the whole or any part of this alert in any other medium excluding electronic medium, please e-mail alert@eEye.com for permission. Disclaimer The information within this paper may change without notice. Use of this information constitutes acceptance for use in an AS IS condition. There are NO warranties with regard to this information. In no event shall the author be liable for any damages whatsoever arising out of or in connection with the use or spread of this information. Any use of this information is at the user's own risk. Feedback Please send suggestions, updates, and comments to: eEye Digital Security mail:info@eEye.com http://www.eEye.com USSR Labs mail:labs@ussrback.com http://www.ussrback.com