Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition Elevation of Privilege

SUMMARY

An elevation of privilege vulnerability in Symantec Client Security and Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition could potentially allow a local attacker to execute code with elevated privileges on the target machine.

Risk Impact
Medium

Remote Access

|

No

—|—

Local Access

|

Yes

Authentication Required

|

Yes

Exploit available

|

No

AFFECTED PRODUCTS

Product

|

Version

|

Affected Build

|

Solution

—|—|—|—

Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition

|

10.0

|

All builds prior to the solution

|

SAV 10 MR2 MP2 (SAV 10.0.2.2020) and later
https://fileconnect.symantec.com/licenselogin.jsp

Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition

|

9.x

|

All builds prior to the solution

|

SAV 9 MR5 MP1 (SAV 9.0.5.1100 )and later
https://fileconnect.symantec.com/licenselogin.jsp

Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition

|

8.1

|

All builds prior to the solution

|

SAV 8.1.1 MR9 build 393 and later
https://fileconnect.symantec.com/licenselogin.jsp

Symantec Client Security

|

3.0

|

All builds prior to the solution

|

SCS 3.0.2 MR2-MP2 - build 2020 and later
https://fileconnect.symantec.com/licenselogin.jsp

Symantec Client Security

|

2.x

|

All builds prior to the solution

|

SCS 2.0.5 MR5 MP 1 build 1100 and later
https://fileconnect.symantec.com/licenselogin.jsp

Symantec Client Security

|

1.x

|

All builds prior to the solution

|

SCS 1.1.1 MR9 build 393
https://fileconnect.symantec.com/licenselogin.jsp

ADDITIONAL PRODUCT INFORMATION

Note:
SCS 1.1.1 MR9 will be available on fileconnect on the afternoon of September 13, 2006, US Pacific time. SCS 1.1.1 and SAV 8.1.1 MR9 are available in English and Japanese only. Symantec recommends that customers update to the international English version of SAV CE 8.1.1, or migrate to a non-vulnerable version of SAV Corporate Edition 9 or 10.

Symantec Platinum Support customers can also download product updates from the Platinum web site.

Unaffected Products

Product

|

Version

|

Note

—|—|—

Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition

|

10.1

|

No build of SAV CE 10.1 is affected

Symantec Client Security

|

3.1

|

No build of SCS 3.1 is affected

Norton product line

|

all

|

None of the Norton products are affected

ISSUES

Details
Layered Defense notified Symantec of a format string vulnerability within Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition. If successfully exploited, the vulnerability could allow a local attacker to execute code with elevated privileges on the local system.

Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition provides the ability to customize the alert notification message displayed when a virus is found or when the Tamper Protection function is triggered. The alert notification process does not properly validate the user-generated input. This could allow a local user to replace the Tamper Protection and Virus Alert Notification messages with a specially-crafted format string which could allow access to the process stack. If successfully exploited, this could allow the user to execute code of the attacker's choice with elevated privileges, on the local system.

In addition, Symantec engineers found a second format string vulnerability in the alert notification process. This issue could allow a local user to replace the alert notification message with a format string which could cause potentially cause the Real Time Virus Scan service to crash when the notification message is displayed following the detection of a malicious file.

This issue is a candidate for inclusion in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) list (<http://cve.mitre.org>), which standardizes names for security problems. CVE has assigned the following identifier to this issue: CVE-2006-3454.

MITIGATION

Symantec Response
Symantec engineers have verified that these vulnerabilities exist in the product versions listed in the table above, and have provided updates to address the issues.

Symantec is not aware of any customers impacted by either of these issues, or of any attempts to exploit them.

As a part of normal best practices, users should keep vendor-supplied patches for all application software and operating systems up-to-date. Symantec recommends any affected customers update their product to protect against these types of threats.

Mitigation
In a managed environment, administrators can lock the ability to change the notification messages. This option prevents users from easily changing the alert messages.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Symantec would like to thank Deral Heiland of Layered Defense (www.LayeredDefense.com) for reporting this issue, and working with us on the resolution.