SUMMARY

Symantec’s Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) for Windows has an unquoted search path in the Manager and Agent components.  This could allow a non-privileged local user, able to successfully insert arbitrary code in the root path, to potentially execute their code with elevated privileges during system startup or reboot. 

AFFECTED PRODUCTS

ADDITIONAL PRODUCT INFORMATION

Products Not Affected

ISSUES

MITIGATION

Details

Symantec was notified of an unquoted search path issue impacting the ESM manager and agents for Windows deployed as part of Symantec’s Enterprise Security Manager. This could potentially allow an authorized but non-privileged local user to execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges on the system.  A successful targeting attempt would require the local user to be able to insert their code in the system root path undetected by the OS or other security applications where it could potentially be executed during application startup or reboot.  If successful, the local user’s code would execute with the elevated privileges of the application.

Symantec Response
Symantec product engineers verified the reported issue and have released Security Update SU44 to address this issue.

A patched MSI installer for 10.0 agents is also available for new agent installations if upgrade to 11.0 isn’t possible at this time. Go to https://www.symantec.com/security_response/securityupdates/list.jsp?fid=esm&pvid=pu to download the updated installer

Symantec is not aware of exploitation of or adverse customer impact from this issue.

Update Information

• Download SU44 via LiveUpdate or from the SU44 link provided
• Once SU44 is applied,
• Run the “Check ESM Service ImagePath” check

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 Gavin Jones with NCC Group Ltd for reporting this issue and coordinating with us as we resolved it.

REFERENCES

BID: Security Focus, http://www.securityfocus.com, has assigned Bugtraq IDs (BIDs) to these issues for inclusion in the Security Focus vulnerability database.

CVE: These issues are candidates for inclusion in the CVE list (http://cve.mitre.org), which standardizes names for security problems.