Cisco fixes critical remote command execution vulnerability in Secure Access Control Server

Cisco Systems released security patches for Secure Access Control Server (Secure ACS) for Windows to address a critical vulnerability that could allow unauthenticated attackers to remotely execute arbitrary commands and take control of the underlying operating system.

Cisco Secure ACS is an application that allows companies to centrally manage access to network resources for various types of devices and users. According to Cisco's documentation, it enforces access control policies for VPN, wireless and other network users and it authenticates administrators, authorizes commands, and provides an audit trail.

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Cisco Secure ACS supports two network access control protocols: Remote Access Dial In User Service (RADIUS) and Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System Plus (TACACS+).

The newly patched vulnerability is identified as CVE-2013-3466 and affects Cisco Secure ACS for Windows versions 4.0 through 4.2.1.15 when configured as a RADIUS server with Extensible Authentication Protocol-Flexible Authentication via Secure Tunneling (EAP-FAST) authentication.

"The vulnerability is due to improper parsing of user identities used for EAP-FAST authentication," Cisco said Wednesday in a security advisory. "An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted EAP-FAST packets to an affected device."

"Successful exploitation of the vulnerability may allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands and take full control of the underlying operating system that hosts the Cisco Secure ACS application in the context of the System user for Cisco Secure ACS running on Microsoft Windows," the company said.

The vulnerability received the maximum severity score, 10.0, in the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), which indicates that it is highly critical. Cisco Secure ACS for Windows version 4.2.1.15.11 was released to address the flaw.

There are no known workarounds, so upgrading to the patched version of the application is recommended.

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Facebook fixes timeline bug, cites language trouble in delay

A Facebook engineer blamed language difficulties and documentation issues for a delay in fixing a bug that let a security researcher post directly to founder Mark Zuckerberg's Timeline, which is restricted if two users aren't friends.

Khalil Shreateh, who lives in Palestine, demonstrated the vulnerability by writing a message on Zuckerberg's Timeline after an earlier bug report he submitted wasn't acted upon, according to his blog.

The flaw was then fixed on Thursday, wrote Facebook software engineer Matt Jones. The social networking site on Sunday confirmed Jones' post, which attributed the delay to the volume of reports Facebook receives and communication issues.

"For background, as a few other commenters have pointed out, we get hundreds of reports every day," he wrote. "Many of our best reports come from people whose English isn't great - though this can be challenging, it's something we work with just fine and we have paid out over $1 million to hundreds of reporters."

Shreateh violated Facebook's bug reporting policy by demonstrating it on a real user's page, Jones wrote. Shreateh had initially demonstrated the flaw to Facebook by posting a message on the page of a woman who went to college with Zuckerberg.

It appears from email correspondence posted by Shreateh on his blog that Facebook did not feel at first that he had found a bug. Shreateh then posted the message on Zuckerberg's timeline. His blog includes a screenshot of that message in which he apologized to Zuckerberg for taking the issue directly to the CEO.

Facebook briefly suspended but reinstated his account, advising him that his report didn't contain enough technical details. The company said he was ineligible for receiving a reward under Facebook's bug bounty program because he violated their terms of service, an email message showed.

Jones wrote that Facebook lets security researchers open test accounts so vulnerabilities aren't tested on real user ones.

"The more important issue here is with how the bug was demonstrated using the accounts of real people without their permission," Jones wrote. "Exploiting bugs to impact real users is not acceptable behavior for a white hat."

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