Research

Public disclosure date: 2/14/2011

Type of vulnerability: Weak Cryptography - Design Flaw

Exploit Vectors: Local

Vulnerability Description: A vulnerability exists in the Tembria Server Monitor application allowing an attacker to easily decrypt usernames and passwords used to authenticate to the application. This is a second level attack that requires access to the password files stored within the application directory. The application implements a simple substitution cipher to obfuscate the values of plaintext usernames and passwords. Obfuscation of the usernames and passwords is achieved by encrypting them to represent numeric values that are three characters wide (i.e. e = 057). An attacker who has previously compromised the host operating system or achieved direct access to the authentication.dat file found in the "\Tembria\Server Monitor" directory can obtain the encrypted user credentials and decrypt them with little effort. Credentials using the same encryption can also be found in XML files located in the "\Tembria\Server Monitor\Exports" directory.

Tested on: Windows XP, SP3, with Tembria Server Monitor v6.0.4 - Build 2229 default installation.

Affected software versions: Tembria Server Monitor v6.0.4 - Build 2229 default installation

Impact: In cases where access to the previously mentioned files is obtained, an attacker can decrypt all username and password values and potentially reuse them for authentication to other systems within the network environment.

Fixed in: Tembria Server Monitor v6.0.5 - Build 2252

Remediation guidelines: The vendor has created a fix to address the discovered issues. Upgrade to Tembria Server Monitor v6.0.5 - Build 2252 or later.