SUMMARY

Symantec resolved a Denial of Service (DoS) and potential compromise vulnerability reported by ISS X-Force. The vulnerability was identified in the Entrust module responsible for handling ISAKMP negotiations that is used in some Symantec gateway products. Under certain conditions, the VPN component terminates abruptly impacting the availability of dynamic VPN services. A specifically crafted attack could potentially lead to further compromise of the VPN server.

AFFECTED PRODUCTS

Affected Components
Symantec Enterprise Firewall 8.0 (Windows and Solaris)
Symantec Enterprise Firewall 7.0.x (Windows and Solaris)
Symantec VelociRaptor 1.5
Symantec Gateway Security 1.0 - 5300
Series Symantec Gateway Security 2.0 - 5400 Series

ISSUES

Details
ISS X-Force notified Symantec of a vulnerability they discovered in the Entrust module running on some of Symantec's gateway products. The module, which implements the IKE key exchange protocol, was not properly validating incoming ISAKMP packets.

ISAKMP is a standard protocol used to negotiate dynamic VPN tunnels. By sending sufficiently malformed ISAKMP packets, an attacker could cause a DoS condition in the affected VPN component. Or, if specifically crafted, the malformed ISAKMP packets could potentially lead to further possible compromise of the VPN server.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) initiative has assigned Candidate CAN-2004-0369 to the ISS X-Force reported issue. This is a candidate for inclusion in the CVE list (http://cve.mitre.org), which standardizes names for security problems.

MITIGATION

Symantec Response
Symantec confirmed the vulnerable module and coordinated extensively with Entrust to finalize and thoroughly test a fix for the Entrust module impacting Symantec's affected products.

Symantec has released a hotfix to address this issue for affected Symantec gateway products. Symantec strongly recommends customers apply the appropriate hotfix for their affected product models/versions immediately to protect against this type of threat.

Product specific hotfixes are available via the Symantec Enterprise Support site http://www.symantec.com/techsupp.

Symantec is not aware of any active attempts against or organizations impacted by this issue

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Symantec appreciates the actions of the X-Force research team in identifying this issue to Symantec and their cooperation and coordination while Symantec worked with Entrust to resolve all issues

REVISION

9/13/2004: Removed mitigation information. Symantec highly recommends all users of affected Symantec gateway products apply the appropriate hotfix for their respective product models/versions.