certificate enrollment flaw
Another flaw in microsoft... this one may interst m$ users.
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Title: Flaw in Certificate Enrollment Control Could Allow
Deletion of Digital Certificates (Q323172)
Date: 28 August 2002
Software: Microsoft Windows 98
Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
Microsoft Windows Millennium
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
Microsoft Windows 2000
Microsoft Windows XP
Impact: Denial of service
Max Risk: Critical
Bulletin: MS02-048
Microsoft encourages customers to review the Security Bulletin at:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sec.../MS02-048.asp.
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Issue:
======
All versions of Windows ship with an ActiveX control known as the
Certificate Enrollment Control, the purpose of which is to allow
web-based certificate enrollments. The control is used to submit PKCS
#10 compliant certificate requests, and upon receiving the requested
certificate, stores it in the user's local certificate store.
The control contains a flaw that could enable a web page, through
an extremely complex process, to invoke the control in a way that
would delete certificates on a user's system. An attacker who
successfully exploited the vulnerability could corrupt trusted root
certificates, EFS encryption certificates, email signing
certificates,
and any other certificates on the system, thereby preventing the user
from using these features.
An attack could be carried out through either of two scenarios. The
attacker could create a web page the that exploits the vulnerability,
and host it on a web site in order to attack users who visited the
site. The attacker also could send the page as an HTML mail in order
to attack the recipient.
A new version of the control is available that corrects the
vulnerability, and can be installed via the patch. A patch is
available for all other Windows systems, as discussed in the Patch
Availability section below. Internet Explorer 5 or later is a
prerequisite to installing the patch. As discussed in the Caveats
section, customers who operate web sites that use the Certificate
Enrollment Control will need to make minor revisions to their web
applications in order to use the new control. Microsoft Knowledge
Base article Q323172 details how to do this.
In addition, the patch addresses a similar, but less serious
vulnerability discovered in the SmartCard Enrollment control.
This control ships with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. A new version
of this control is also provided.
Mitigating Factors:
====================
- - The web site-based attack vector could not be exploited if ActiveX
controls were disabled in the Security Zone associated with the
attacker's site.
- - The mail-based attack vector could not be exploited if the
recipient's email client handles HTML mail in the Restricted Sites
Zone. Outlook Express 6 and Outlook 2002 open mail in this zone by
default. Outlook 98 and 2000 open HTML mail in the Restricted Sites
Zone if the Outlook Email Security Update has been installed.
- - The vulnerability would not enable certificates on smart cards to
be corrupted, even if the smart card were in the system at the time
of an attack.
Risk Rating:
============
- Internet systems: Low
- Intranet systems: Low
- Client systems: Critical
Patch Availability:
===================
- A patch is available to fix this vulnerability. Please read the
Security Bulletin at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sec...n/ms02-048.asp
for information on obtaining this patch.
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
