SUMMARY

Symantec’s Workspace Streaming client fails to properly authenticate with the Symantec Workspace Streaming server when downloading files. This could potentially lead to unauthorized download of arbitrary code to a client system.

AFFECTED PRODUCTS

Products Affected

ISSUES

Severity

High 

MITIGATION

Details

CERT identified a weakness in the Symantec Workspace Streaming application (formerly Symantec AppStream). The Symantec Workspace Streaming client does not properly authenticate with the server prior to downloading available files hosted on the server. 

A malicious user could potentially establish a rogue Workspace Streaming server masquerading as an authorized server. If the server is properly configured and recognized by the client, this lack of proper authentication could possibly allow download of arbitrary files to a client system with no interaction required from the system user. This could result in successful arbitrary file download and possible execution on the client system.

Symantec Response

Symantec product engineers have developed and released a solution through Symantec's support download location as indicated. Symantec recommends all customers apply the latest available updates to protect against threats of this nature. 

Symantec knows of no exploitation of or adverse customer impact from this issue. 

Symantec Workspace Streaming 6.1 SP4 is currently available for update through the FileConnect -Electronic Software Distribution web site.

Best Practices

As part of normal best practices, Symantec strongly recommends a multi-layered approach to security 

• Restrict access to administration or management systems to privileged users.
• Restrict remote access, if it is required, to trusted/authorized systems only.
• Run under the principle of least privilege where possible to limit the impact of potential exploits.
• Follow a multi-layered approach to security. Run both firewall and antivirus applications, at a minimum, to provide multiple points of detection and protection to both inbound and outbound threats.
• Keep all operating systems and applications updated with the latest vendor patches.
• Users should be cautious of mysterious attachments and executables delivered via email and be cautious of browsing unknown/untrusted websites or opening unknown/untrusted URL links.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Symantec thanks Will Dormann with CERT for reporting this finding and coordinating closely with Symantec as we resolved the issue.

REFERENCES

Security Focus, http://www.securityfocus.com, has assigned a Bugtraq ID (BID) 40611 to this issue for inclusion in the Security Focus vulnerability database. 

This issue is a candidate for inclusion in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) list (http://cve.mitre.org). The CVE initiative has assigned CVE-2008-4389 to this issue.