RE: Access a remote registry

From: Steve Skoronski (skoronskiat_private)
Date: Fri May 18 2001 - 13:55:27 PDT

  • Next message: H C: "RE: Access a remote registry"

    	I am going to assume this is in a professional testing environment
    (audit, assessment, etc...). H Carvey raises a very valid point, if a tool
    finds a problem, is it *really* a problem? According to who? Microsoft may
    claim it's a 'feature', and the tool vendor may demonstrate how it
    compromises security. 
    
    	The answer lies in the auditor or pen-tester. Your duty is to
    assess, manage risk, and mitigate those risks. You always have to keep the
    client's best interests in mind. If ISS or Retina are pumping out
    vulnerability reports, it's not enough to read these and present them as a
    report. Verification, (in this case can be done by attempting to read or
    write information to the remote registry) is required. If there is a
    vulnerability, it must be measured in terms of risk (but this is a whole
    other domain). In some instances, i.e.: if its going to cost a lot of money
    to protect a network from a certain attack (DDOS) then a verification that
    this can actually be done is often requested.  
    
    
    Steve
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: H Carvey [mailto:keydet89at_private]
    Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 9:39 AM
    To: pen-testat_private
    Subject: Re: Access a remote registry
    
    
    
    
    > I'm checking the security of a Windows NT 
    server. I have first used Retina
    > to get a general overview of the server, and 
    it has discovered that the
    > Guest user has access to the registry.
    
    This post brings up another issue...validation.  
    Retina reports that the Guest account is 
    allowed access to the Registry remotely...but 
    how is this validated.
    
    ISS's Internet Scanner used (v5.8,v6.0) used to 
    report that the AutoAdminLogon functionality 
    existed if the value was set to '0', which 
    according to Microsoft is incorrect.  
    Rebooting the system proved this.
    
    The point is...if a commercial tool reports a 
    vulnerability, and it's not able to be 
    replicated, then whom do you believe?
    



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