Citrix NetScaler Cookie Weakness May Let Users Access Arbitrary Accounts
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SecurityTracker Alert ID: 1018991 |
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SecurityTracker URL: http://securitytracker.com/id/1018991
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CVE Reference:
CVE-2007-6192, CVE-2007-6193
(Links to External Site)
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Updated: Dec 4 2007
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Original Entry Date: Nov 26 2007
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Impact:
User access via network
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Vendor Confirmed: Yes Exploit Included: Yes
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Version(s): 8.0, build 47.8
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Description:
A vulnerability was reported in Citrix NetScaler. A remote authenticated user may be able to create cookies for arbitrary accounts on the system.
The web management interface stores the target user's authentication credentials in encrypted form in a cookie when the target user is logged in to the interface. The credentials are encrypted using a fixed key stream.
A remote authenticated user can determine portions of the key stream by XORing known plaintext values with the corresponding encrypted values. With knowledge of the target username, the remote user can generate the necessary cookie values to access the target user's account.
Citrix Access Gateway is also affected.
nnposter reported this vulnerability.
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Impact:
A remote authenticated user may be able to create cookies to gain access to arbitrary accounts on the system.
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Solution:
No solution was available at the time of this entry.
The Citrix advisory is available at:
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX115496
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Vendor URL: support.citrix.com/article/CTX115496 (Links to External Site)
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Cause:
Authentication error
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Underlying OS:
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Message History:
None.
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Source Message Contents
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Date: 26 Nov 2007 02:06:03 -0000
Subject: Citrix NetScaler Web Management Cookie Weakness
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Citrix NetScaler Web Management Cookie Weakness
Product: Citrix NetScaler
http://www.citrix.com/lang/English/ps2/index.asp
Background:
For most web application logins a user fills out an HTTP form, which sets up the user with a session cookie. The cookie content is
merely a session ID, which allows the server-side application to match incoming requests to a specific user and session. If the cookie
gets compromised, such as using XSS, the attacker might be able to impersonate the user for the duration of the session but it typically
does not allow the attacker to obtain the user's login credentials.
Vulnerability:
The web management interface of Citrix NetScaler stores the user's credentials in an encrypted form in the cookie, namely values ns1
and ns2. In addition the cookie contains other encrypted information in values ns3, ns4, and ns5. Since the encryption is a simple
XOR with a fixed key stream it is possible to determine parts of the key stream by XOR'ing a known plaintext with its corresponding
ciphertext. This in turn allows the attacker to recover the plaintext form of the user's credentials by applying the key stream to
cookie values ns1 and ns2. Furthermore, the cipher does not in any way pad the plaintext before it gets encrypted so the length of
the ciphertext is equal to the length of the plaintext, which also provides a clue about the plaintext.
There are several approaches to obtain the ciphertext for some known plaintext:
* Log into the management console with the attacker's own credentials (if the attacker is a configured user, even with minimal privileges)
and analyze his own cookie.
* Make an educated guess about the username contained in ns1. (As an example, the default root user on NetScaler is "nsroot".)
* Make an educated guess about the device hostname or IP address, which is contained in ns3. (As an example, the "main" IP address
is stored unencrypted in cookie value "domain". This is a minor vulnerability all by itself.)
* Use cookie value ns4, which is an encrypted value of "NS".
* Use cookie value ns5, which is an encrypted value of either "true" or "false".
The vulnerability has been identified in version 8.0, build 47.8.
However, other versions may be also affected.
Solution:
Do not stay logged into the NetScaler web management interface while browsing other web sites to avoid cookie theft via XSS, such
as CVE-2007-6037.
Found by:
nnposter
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