Vulnerability Note VU#793433

Novell exteNd Director 4.1 LocalExec ActiveX control fails to restrict access to dangerous methods

Overview

The Novell exteNd Director 4.1 LocalExec ActiveX control fails to restrict access to dangerous methods, which can allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary commands on a vulnerable system.

I. Description

Novell exteNd Director is a set of software development tools and APIs for creating enterprise web applications. exteNd Director 4.1 includes an ActiveX control called LocalExec, which is provided by the file LocalExec.ocx. This ActiveX control contains a method called launch(), which can be used to execute arbitrary commands on a vulnerable system.

Note that exteNd Director 4.1 is no longer supported by Novell.

II. Impact

By convincing a user to view a specially crafted HTML document (e.g., a web page or an HTML email message or attachment), an attacker may be able to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user.

III. Solution

Apply an update

This issue is addressed in Novell security update 3169416. This document describes how to set the kill bit for the vulnerable control.

Disable the LocalExec ActiveX control in Internet Explorer

The vulnerable ActiveX control can be disabled in Internet Explorer by setting the kill bit for the following CLSID:

{2B1AA38D-2D12-11D5-AAD0-00C04FA03D78}

More information about how to set the kill bit is available in Microsoft Support Document 240797. Alternatively, the following text can be saved as a .REG file and imported to set the kill bit for this control:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftInternet ExplorerActiveX Compatibility{2B1AA38D-2D12-11D5-AAD0-00C04FA03D78}]
"Compatibility Flags"=dword:00000400

Disable ActiveX

Disabling ActiveX controls in the Internet Zone (or any zone used by an attacker) appears to prevent exploitation of this and other ActiveX vulnerabilities. Instructions for disabling ActiveX in the Internet Zone can be found in the "Securing Your Web Browser" document.

Systems Affected

Vendor	Status	Date Updated
Novell, Inc.	Vulnerable	15-Jun-2007

References

https://secure-support.novell.com/KanisaPlatform/Publishing/360/3169416_f.SAL_Public.html
http://www.novell.com/documentation/nedse41/readmesp2.txt
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240797
http://secunia.com/advisories/25710/

Credit

This vulnerability was reported by Will Dormann of CERT/CC.

This document was written by Will Dormann.

Other Information

Date Public	08/30/2004
Date First Published	06/15/2007 01:43:48 PM
Date Last Updated	06/21/2007
CERT Advisory
CVE Name	CVE-2007-2923
Metric	1.34
Document Revision	7