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I just threw up a blog post with all the relevant details (http://www.computerdefense.org/?p=258). Needless to say there's a new 0-day in the Solaris telnet daemon. It's rather simple to bypass and could be remotely exploited by my grandmother... If you're running telnet still.. Disable it.
HT wouldn't you agree however that anybody still using telnet for anything other than a bad joke deserves what they get in this case, since its standard knowledge how much telnet sucks? And wow what a short exploit, perhaps a record setter?
Telnet is considered an inherent security risk because of the lack of encryption... (among other things)... but there's always a chance that someone could be running ssl-telnet or krb-telnet. There are also some situtations where telnet is almost "required" but is sometimes an ease of use thing for people...Quote:
Originally Posted by Syini666
I agree though that in an environment with any sense of security you probably *shouldn't* be running telnet... but I don't agree that they deserve what they get...
Not really, no. I have lots of legacy infrastructure hardware that only accept telnet connections. Likeiwse I know of a fair amount of other people who are in the same boat.....Quote:
anybody still using telnet for anything other than a bad joke deserves what they get
'Because they use telnet' is not a valid answer when someone asks you why something should be upgraded.
Anyone who works or has worked in a corperate enviroment will always find themselves using telent from time to time.....
I have to argue nokia's corner on this one. Whilst I would agree that Telnet would not be your application of choice, that implies that you actually have a choice?
Let's face it folks, legacy systems can be a real PITA if you cannot get the budget/resouces to replace them?
My view is that Telnet is fine, provided that it is used internally. which is what I believe it was its original intention?
;)
I don't know that I agree with that... on your internal network is where you are subject to sniffing... we all know, that unless you're some big hub or at an ISP, you're not going to be sniffing internet traffic.... Which eliminates the plaintext problem for the most part...Quote:
Originally Posted by nihil
As for legacy systems... We actually had (and it took considerable effort) SSH running on SunOS 4... You can get it on a lot of systems... but yes there's the occasional system that you have to have telnet running on... Those systems, however, should have access controls in place... IP address limitations, etc.... that should shield them from vulnerabilities in telnet, such as this one..
HT~ ,
Sorry mate, that was a rather slack post on my part. I was referring to home, and SOHO type environments where everyone is "trusted".
:)
If you have someone sniffing your internal traffic, using telent is the least of your worries :D
That is very true.................never let an HR problem become an IT one;)
If proper protocols are in place then it shouldn't be too much of a bother to have someone sniffing on your network...Quote:
Originally Posted by Nokia
There are places where detecting sniffing is going to be impossible... and I can get you that employees at lost of companies play with sniffers.. or college students...
I would say that telnet running is a bigger concern than people sniffing... either way the environment is probably not properly secured (so it probably becomes a moot point)...
On the topic of sniffing I found out one day at an internship just how trusting the internal network was. I was setting up a Linux box basically to use for monitoring of customers with problems (see also: for the hell of it) and for some reason I figured it would be good to install Ethereal just in case it was needed(was interning at an ISP just for some background), so naturally it needed to be tested as well... wow was that a scare when it suddenly started showing up all the internal traffic and passwords galore!
I don't think I've ever wanted to close a window so fast in my life. Came to find out later that the internal network actually had two freaking hubs as the center points of it all; I wouldn't have believed the guy when he told me except for the fact we were standing right next to the two boxes! Sounds like its a rare occasion but this was an ISP with on the order of 35-40,000 customers. More on-topic we used telnet for managing the ERX, probably the Juniper M10i, and also a few of our more ancient DSLAMs out in the field, so I can only imagine that learning the admin passwords to all the core gear would have been a trivial matter of waiting for someone to login to it. I might have been a level-headed non-douche intern during my time there but I'm sure there were some wanna-bes there that would have not taken the high road when presented with such a tempting target.