Re: ISS Security Advisory: Hidden community string in SNMP

From: Raphael Muzzio (rmuzzioat_private)
Date: Sun Nov 15 1998 - 18:03:55 PST

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    Roland,
    
    Actually the message posted by X-Force is referring to backdoor passwords found embedded in the binaries in the Solaris and HP SNMP agents listed.  I have noticed X-Force advisories typically are not full disclosure, so I went ahead and dug into the agents with a binary editor and found the following passwords:
    
    Solaris: all private
    HP: snmpd
    
    These passwords are NOT stored in the snmp.conf, and as far as I can tell from testing, cannot be disabled.  I have not tested against the patched versions of the Sun binaries - can someone try this community string on the new agents?
    
    In the last few months this list has seen backdoors in 3COM, HP and Sun products.  Is this common practice among vendords today?
    
    -Raphael
    
    Roland Grefer (btirgat_private)
    Thu, 5 Nov 1998 16:25:20 -0500
    
    In reply to: Jean Chouanard: "Re: ISS Security Advisory: Hidden community string in SNMP"
    > At 02:47 PM 11/2/98 -0800, someone using X-Force's login wrote:
    > >
    > >ISS Security Advisory
    > >November 2nd, 1998
    > >
    > >Hidden community string in SNMP implementation
    
    The community string in the SNMP implementation actually is NOT hidden,
    but rather accessible in plain text form in
    
            /etc/snmp/conf/snmp.conf
    
    (by default there, or another location when modified; snmpdx usually
    should be started with the "-c /pathname/snmp.conf" option to control
    which configuration file is being used.
    
    The relevant entries are the strings assigned to
    
            system-group-read-community     public
            system-group-write-community    private
            read-community                  public
            write-community                 private
    
    It is recommended that these "passwords" be changed from their default
    values (above: public/private) to avoid security compromises.
    
    
    
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