Re: Norton antivirus fails to scan files

From: garberoaat_private
Date: Wed Jul 10 2002 - 18:06:04 PDT

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    BoneMachine,
    
    What do you mean by "a file has no Administrator read privileges"? Is the
    principal/group simply not present in the ACL for the object, or is an
    explicit deny set? Also, are you referring to the local administrators
    group, or the local administrator account (RID 500)? It matters. If, for
    instance, you had NAV running as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM and it attempted to
    open the file (ACLed with "deny read" set for the Local Administrators
    group) for a read operation, it will fail. A glance at the group membership
    for NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM on an NT 4.0 or Win2k box reveals why:
    
    [User]     = "NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM"  S-1-5-18
    
    [Group  1] = "BUILTIN\Administrators"  S-1-5-32-544
    [Group  2] = "Everyone"  S-1-1-0
    [Group  3] = "NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users"  S-1-5-11
    
    If an explicit deny is set for the local admins group (that NT
    AUTHORITY\SYSTEM) is a member of, then the operation will fail. See attached
    zip archive for neato-keen screen shots of the read fail in action. If this
    is the problem you are encountering, which I suspect it is, you should be
    seeing audit failures in the security log that confirm this (you are
    auditing, aren't you?).
    
    It's a common misconception that the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM account doesn't
    have to play by the same rules as any other account when it comes to
    accessing ACLed resources. You can set explicit deny ACLs for the SYSTEM
    account on just about anything (File System objects, registry keys, system
    objects... get used to looking at blue screens with white letters if you
    decide to be silly with this functionality).
    
    
    HTH, 
    
    Andrew Garberoglio, MCSE, CISSP
    Wells Fargo Services, Internet Technology Services
    
    "Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not
    eff it after all"
    -Douglas Adams
    
     <<cant_scan_me.zip>> 
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: BoneMachine [mailto:bonemachat_private]
    Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 4:47 AM
    To: vuln-devat_private
    Subject: Norton antivirus fails to scan files
    
    
    I have a problem with NAV corporate edition 7.6. When a file has no
    Administrator read privileges assigned on a Windows 2000 or Windows NT host,
    NAV fails to scan the file for viruses.
    This is a bit odd because the NAV client runs with system privileges and
    according to my NT knowledge this should be enough to read those files.
    
    I've searched on the Symantec knowledge base and all I found was this:
    Error: "Application Log is Full" upon startup of Norton AntiVirus Corporate
    Edition
    http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ent-security.nsf/552ba2f7636bedf0882568
    18006f78bf/304b3eb399b43ab588256a780056e5d7?
    
    I have also used the webform to post this issue to symantec about two months
    ago, but I had no response
    
    Also it is not possible to use an other account than administrator as the
    'scan' account. So it is impossible to protect documents from accidental
    access by removing administrator privileges from a file (yes, I know that
    administrators can add themselfs to the ACL of a file, but that does require
    an extra action thus excluding accidental access)
    
    My thoughts are that there are two vulnerabilities to this behavior of NAV
    1. A virus can protect itself from being scanned by removing administrator
    read privileges from itself and its copies.
    2. The administrator needs read privileges on all files, files therefore
    cannot be protected from accidental access by administrators.
    
    Does anyone have the same experience ? 
    Does anyone know of a virus that uses this technique to hide ?
    
    greetings
    Bone Machine
    
    --
    
    "Hey! been trying to meet you" - The Pixies
    
    --
    
    
    
    



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