SUMMARY

Versions of Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager 11.0 running the Network Threat Protection module on Windows Server 2003 are susceptible to a Denial of Service(DoS).  Successful exploitation could potentially result in the system hosting Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager becoming unresponsive to IIS-based web server requests until restarted.

AFFECTED PRODUCTS

Affected Operating Systems

ADDITIONAL PRODUCT INFORMATION

Products Not Affected

NOTE:  This DoS only impacts SEP 11.x running on Windows Server 2003, Service Pack 2 and below

ISSUES

Medium

CVSS2 Base Score: 4

Impact: 2.86 Exploitability 7.95

CVSS2 Vector AV: AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:P
 

MITIGATION

Details
Symantec was notified of a Denial of Service(DoS) within the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager 11.x and related maintenance packs to include SEP11 RU7 MP1 running on Windows Server 2003 SP2 and below. 

A successful exploitation is possible when using audit tools to aggressively scan the targeted Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager host.  After a period of heavy scanning the Network Threat Protection  module responds to the perceived threat by blocking all subsequent traffic to the server.  This can lead the server to stop serving pages and in some instances can cause excessive resource use which can lead to a hang or crash of the server.

This issue does not impact the security of the Symantec Endpoint Manager, only the availability of the web server components.

Workaround
Manually restarting the server and/or IIS service will remedy the situation.

Symantec Response
Symantec product engineers verified the reported issues.  Symantec engineers fixed the issues in Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0.7000 RU7 MP2.

Update Information

Updates will be available through customers’ normal support/download locations.

Best Practices
As part of normal best practices, Symantec strongly recommends:

• Restrict access to administration or management systems to privileged users.
• Restrict remote access, if required, to trusted/authorized systems only.
• Run under the principle of least privilege where possible to limit the impact of exploit by threats.
• Keep all operating systems and applications updated with the latest vendor patches.
• Follow a multi-layered approach to security. Run both firewall and anti-malware applications, at a minimum, to provide multiple points of detection and protection to both inbound and outbound threats.
• Deploy network and host-based intrusion detection systems to monitor network traffic for signs of anomalous or suspicious activity. This may aid in detection of attacks or malicious activity related to exploitation of latent vulnerabilities

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Symantec credits Greg Johnson of Clear Skies Security working through CERT/CC for reporting this issue.

REFERENCES

Security Focus, http://www.securityfocus.com, has assigned a Bugtraq ID (BID) 50358 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-2012-1821 to this issue.

REVISION

5/23/2012 – Added 11.0 RU7(11.0.710x) to affected products
7/5/2012 – Following additional analysis and testing, added all releases of SEP 11.x prior to SEP 11.0 RU7 MP2 to Affected Products matrix