Re: qpopper timing analysis on to determine if a username exists on a system

From: Waldo Nell (pwnellat_private)
Date: Mon Mar 17 2003 - 06:09:02 PST

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    Hi,
    
    I have tested this on my qpopper 4.0.5 - and I get this response no matter 
    from which host I test (even localhost):
    
    sun waldo # ./poptest mail.XXX.net gert
    Validating username gert , please stand by..
    Disconnected after 119.993 seconds.
    User "gert" is probably a valid user
    
    But that user is not a valid user. I have APOP authentication on and required, 
    thus the pop server responded with
    
    You must use TLS/SSL or stronger authentication such as APOP to connect to 
    this server
    
    Maybe this is a temporary solution? Or maybe the issue was fixed in 4.0.5?
    
    Regards,
    - Waldo
    
    On Saturday 15 March 2003 21:13, Dennis Lubert wrote:
    > Hello,
    >
    > during development of a pop3 tool I found an issue that makes it possible
    > for any user to check the validity of a user on a target system. If a user
    > is valid and an invalid password has been supplied, then the system waits
    > ~10 seconds until it sends a disconnect message and disconnect. If the
    > username was not correct, then it disconnect immediately after the wrong
    > password.
    >
    > This makes it possible to scan a server for valid users, to generate spam
    > sending lists, or to check a username for another kind of attack.
    >
    > Tested against qpopper 3.1 and 4.0.4, others might be affected as well.
    >
    > Attached is the source code for a program that will do a simple check on a
    > pop3 server. Additionally qpopper will also return an answer if the
    > username supplied has a UID < 100 (< 10 for 3.1), which will also been
    > checked.
    >
    > The fix should be simple, there must be a usleep() call or similar that
    > should either be deleted, or added also to the part where the username was
    > not correct.
    >
    > greets
    >
    > Dennis
    



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