FW: CISCO ALERT - Cisco warns of holes in PIX firewalls
- From: "Thomas W Shinder" <tshinder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "[ISAserver.org Discussion List]" <isalist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 14:48:11 -0600
So much for the miracle of the "hardware" firewall :-)
Network World's Cisco News Alert
Cisco warns of holes in PIX firewalls
By Paul Roberts
IDG News Service, 12/16/03
Network equipment maker Cisco is warning customers about
security holes in its PIX firewall product and firewall software
that runs on the Catalyst 6500 Series and 7600 Series switches.
Cisco issued two security advisories on Monday describing
vulnerabilities that could allow remote attackers to shut down
Cisco firewalls using HTTP or SNMP requests designed to exploit
the weaknesses.
Certain versions of the PIX firewall can be crashed and
restarted in a so-called denial-of-service (DoS) attack when
they receive messages using the SNMP version 3 (SNMPv3)
protocol, an updated version of SNMP, which allows organizations
to monitor the status of network devices. PIX firewalls do not
support SNMPv3, Cisco said.
An SNMP server must be defined for the Cisco firewall in order
for SNMPv3 attack to succeed, Cisco said.
Catalyst switches running the Cisco Firewall Services Module
(FWSM) are also vulnerable to DoS attacks using SNMPv3, Cisco
said. The FWSM is software, based on the PIX Operating System,
that allows Cisco customers to use their high-performance
Catalyst switches as firewalls.
In addition to the SNMPv3 vulnerability, a second buffer
overflow vulnerability discovered in the FWSM could allow a
malicious hacker using either RADIUS or TACACS+ to crash a Cisco
firewall with a user authentication request sent using HTTP,
Cisco said. RADIUS and TACACS+ are both client/server protocols
that allow remote access servers to communicate with a central
authentication server and authorize a remote user's access to a
requested network system or service.
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