Re: SECURITY.NNOV: Netscape 4.7x Messanger user information retrival

From: Thomas Corriher (tcorriherat_private)
Date: Wed Jun 06 2001 - 09:36:39 PDT

  • Next message: Stefaan Deman: "security bug Internet Explorer 5"

    On Tue, 5 Jun 2001, 3APA3A wrote:
    
    > Author                  : 3APA3A <3APA3Aat_private>
    > Affected software       : Netscape 4.7x All Platforms
    > Vendor URL              : http://www.netscape.com
    > SECURITY.NNOV advisories: http://www.security.nnov.ru/advisories
    >
    > Background:
    >
    > Netscape  Messanger  uses  internal  protocol  called  mailbox://. The
    > format of mailbox URI is
    >
    > mailbox://full_path_to_user_folder?ID=some_message_d&number=somenumber
    >
    > Problem:
    >
    > It's  possible  to  retrieve mailbox:// URI of the message. E.g., it's
    > possible to retrieve mailbox location, user's system login and in some
    > cases path to Netscape installation.
    
    This does not seem like a real issue to me, and it certainly
    does not qualify as an exploit.  This information would seem
    useful only if we believed that security through obscurity had
    merit.  Compound this with the fact that most people are not even
    trying to hide their user account names, and that Netscape mail
    locations are typically standardized in default directories
    anyway.  This information appears to be useless for anyone trying
    to compromise security.
    
    It is interesting, and I would like to commend the poster for
    his cleverness nevertheless.
    
    
    -- 
      Thomas Corriher
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Jun 07 2001 - 11:07:45 PDT