SYMSA1149

Symantec Altiris Deployment Server Escalation of Privileges

Last Updated March 10, 2008
Initial Publication Date March 10, 2008
  • Status: Closed
  • Severity: Medium
  • CVSS Base Score:

An escalation of privilege vulnerability in the Symantec Altiris Deployment Solution Agent (AClient.exe) has been resolved.

Severity

Medium
Remote Access No
Local Access Yes
Authentication Required Yes
Exploit publicly available No

Affected Product(s)

Product Version Build Solution(s)
Altiris Deployment Solution 6.8.x All 6.9.164

Details

The Symantec Altiris Deployment Server Agents are susceptible to privilege escalation vulnerability, commonly known as a shatter attack, which can lead to unauthorized privileged access. This attack is limited to users with login access to systems running the Symantec Altiris Deployment Solution Agent (AClient.exe).

SecurityFocus, http://www.securityfocus.com, has assigned a Bugtraq ID(BID) to this issue for inclusion in the SecurityFocus vulnerability data base. The BID assigned is 28110 which can be found at http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/28110.

Symantec Response

Symantec engineers have verified and resolved this vulnerability. The following steps are required for remediation of this security issue:
  • Enter your email address.
  • Select "Deployment Solution for Clients 6.9" from the drop-down box
  • Click "Submit"
  • Accept the "End User License Agreement"
  • Click on "Deployment Solution for Clients 6.9" to download a zip file containing the Deployment Solution update.
  • Unzip the update package and double-click on Altiris_DeploymentSolutionWin_6_9.exe.
  • Follow the installation instructions

Best Practices

As part of normal best practices, Symantec strongly recommends:
  • Restrict access to administration or management systems to privileged users.
  • Restrict remote access, if required, to trusted/authorized systems only.
  • Run under the principle of least privilege where possible to limit the impact of exploit by threats.
  • Keep all operating systems and applications updated with the latest vendor patches.
  • Follow a multi-layered approach to security. Run both firewall and anti-malware applications, at a minimum, to provide multiple points of detection and protection to both inbound and outbound threats.
  • Deploy network and host-based intrusion detection systems to monitor network traffic for signs of anomalous or suspicious activity. This may aid in detection of attacks or malicious activity related to exploitation of latent vulnerabilities

Symantec would like to thank Brett Moore of Insomnia Security for reporting this issue and for providing full coordination while Symantec resolved it.

SYM08-008

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