Re: KSR[T] Advisory #10: mSQL ServerStats

[dhg () KSRT ORG (Dave G.)]

On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, John W. Temples wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Dave G. wrote:
>
> > Compromise:          If host based access control is disabled, a
> >                      remote attacker can use the user names listed in
> >                      the connection table to access databases.  If host
> >                      based access control is enabled, a remote attacker
> >                      could launch a more complex attack (like DNS cache
> >                      poisoning) to access mSQL databases.
>
> This is hardly news; mSQL's access control is extremely weak.
> ServerStats probably makes it easier to get into an mSQL database, but
> if remote access is enabled, you simply need to know an authorized
> username (say, "root") to log into the database -- there are no
> passwords.

I disagree.  This is news :-)

There is no probably about this.  If you can issue a ServerStats request
on an mSQL server that is in use, you _will_ find all of the
authentication credentials necessary to access mSQL databases. Your post
basically pointed out that if you have the authentication credentials
or can guess them, you can access mSQL databases.  Ours states that you
_can_ get them right from the server.

Your post ( http://geek-girl.com/bugtraq/1997_3/0460.html ), discusses
three things:

1) default configuration is insecure
2) User based authentication is insufficient ( especially on multi-user
   machines)
3) Host based authentication does one way DNS lookups based on IP
   address which is trivial to bypass.

> And you don't even need a username to perform DoS attacks,
> since mSQL is a single-threaded server -- just telnet to mSQL's port
> and sit there.  As far as I can see, the only thing that's changed
> since I posted about this in September, 1997, is that remote access is
> now disabled by default.

The advisory never states you need a user name for a denial of service
attack.  And while it does show that other pieces of information could be
used to assist in a DOS attack, they aren't necessary to launch one.

Dave G.
<daveg () ksrt org>
http://www.ksrt.org