In case anyone else may have missed the release earlier this month, here are the details surrounding the security vulnerability for any Altiris Agent pre- 6.0.2389 build. Linky here...
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/security/Content/2008.02.06.html
SYM008-002
February 6, 2008
Symantec Altiris Notification Server Agent Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
Severity: Medium
Remote Access: No
Local Access: Yes
Authentication Required: Yes
Exploit publicly available: No
Overview
A privilege escalation vulnerability in the Symantec Altiris Notification Server Agent has been identified.
Affected Product(s)
Product Version Build Solution(s)
Altiris Notification Server 6.X All 6.0 SP3 R7
Details
The Symantec Altiris Notification Server Agents are vulnerable to a shatter attack that can lead to privilege escalation. This attack is limited to users with login access to systems running the Symantec Altiris Notification Server Agent.
Symantec Response
Symantec engineers have verified and fixed this vulnerability. The following steps are required for remediation of this security issue:
- Download Altiris_NS_6_0_SP3_KB35803.exe from the following location:
http://www.solutionsam.com/solutions/6_0/
- Run Altiris_NS_6_0_SP3_35803.exe on the Notification Server.
- Via the Notification Server console, upgrade all agent machines.
Additional installation and configuration information can be found in KB Article 35803 at http://kb.altiris.com.
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
References
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 27645 which can be found at http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/27645
Credit
Symantec would like to thank Brett Moore of Insomnia Security for reporting this issue and for providing full coordination while Symantec resolved it.