OpenSSH-Portable Existing Password Remote Information Disclosure Weakness

BID:20418

Info

OpenSSH-Portable Existing Password Remote Information Disclosure Weakness

Bugtraq ID: 20418
Class: Design Error
CVE: CVE-2006-5229
Remote: Yes
Local: No
Published: Oct 09 2006 12:00AM
Updated: Feb 14 2007 04:37PM
Credit: The discovery of this vulnerability is credited to Marco Ivaldi.
Vulnerable: S.u.S.E. Linux Professional 10.0 OSS
S.u.S.E. Linux Professional 10.0
S.u.S.E. Linux Personal 10.0 OSS
OpenSSH OpenSSH 4.1 p1
Not Vulnerable:

Discussion

OpenSSH-Portable Existing Password Remote Information Disclosure Weakness

OpenSSH reportedly contains an information-disclosure weakness. This issue resides in the portable version of OpenSSH, which is distributed for operating systems other than its native OpenBSD platform.

This issue has been confirmed as not deriving from either the Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) issue disclosed in BID 11781 in 2004, nor the more recent Generic Security Services Application Programming Interface (GSSAPI)-based information leak outlined in BID 20245. Reportedly, it is possible to verify access credentials for users with an existing system password by measuring SSH authentication timing differences.

This weakness allows remote users to test for the existence of valid usernames with a password set. Knowledge of system users with established passwords may aid in further attacks.

Exploit / POC

OpenSSH-Portable Existing Password Remote Information Disclosure Weakness

A proof-of-concept script is available.

Attackers can also manually verify the existence of this phenomenon by using a combination of a valid SSH client application and a packet-sniffing utility.

Solution / Fix

OpenSSH-Portable Existing Password Remote Information Disclosure Weakness

Solution:
Currently we are not aware of any vendor-supplied patches for this issue. If you feel we are in error or if you are aware of more recent information, please mail us at: mailto:[email protected].

References

OpenSSH-Portable Existing Password Remote Information Disclosure Weakness

References:

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