SUMMARY

A notification window displayed by Symantec’s Real-Time protection service could be exploited by a local user to gain elevated privileges on the local system.

Risk Impact
Medium

AFFECTED PRODUCTS

Affected Products

Note: *All versions and builds prior to the version listed under Solution are affected.
Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition 10.0 (SAV CE) users can obtain this update by migrating to SAV CE 10.1MR4 MP1 or later. Symantec Client Security (SCS) 3.0 users can obtain the update by migrating to SCS 3.1 MR4 MP1 or later. Symantec Platinum Support customers can also download updates from the Platinum Web site.

ADDITIONAL PRODUCT INFORMATION

Unaffected Products

ISSUES

Details
The Real-Time scanner (RTVScan) component of Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition provides notification and logging services for the product. One function of RTVScan is to display a notification window with information about a threat found on the system, if the program is configured to use that option. Ali Rahbar notified Symantec that an unprivileged user could potentially attack this window with specially crafted code, and gain SYSTEM level privileges on their local system. The user could then run code of their choice on their local system.

This issue is a candidate for inclusion in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) list (http://cve.mitre.org), which standardizes names for security problems. A CVE identifier has been requested for this vulnerability.
SecurityFocus (http://www.securityfocus.com) has assigned Bugtraq ID (BID) 24810 to this issue

MITIGATION

Symantec response
Symantec engineers have verified that the issue exists in the versions of Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition listed in the table above. Our investigation showed that the potential attack is limited to the local user, and that the elevation of privilege is limited to the user’s own system.
Symantec is not aware of any customers impacted by this issue, or of any attempts to exploit the issue.
As a part of normal best practices, users should keep vendor-supplied patches for all application software and operating systems up-to-date. Symantec recommends any affected customers update their product immediately to protect against potential attempts to exploit this issue.

Mitigation
In a managed environment, administrators can disable Notification Message (alert) window, and lock the notification option to prevent users from re-enabling the Notification Message window.

Best Practice
Symantec recommends any affected customers update their product to protect against potential attempts to exploit this issue. As part of normal best practices, Symantec recommends the following:

• Run under the principle of least privilege to limit the impact of exploits.
• Keep all operating systems and applications updated with the latest vendor patches.
• Follow a multi-layered approach to security. Run both firewall and antivirus software to provide multiple points of detection and protection from inbound and outbound threats.
• Use network intrusion detection systems to monitor network traffic for signs of anomalous activity. This may aid in detection of attacks related to exploitation of vulnerabilities

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Symantec would like to thank Ali Rahbar of Sysdream (http://www.sysdream.com) for reporting this issue