| Asterisk Project Security Advisory - AST-2012-012 
 Product         Asterisk
 Summary         Asterisk Manager User Unauthorized Shell Access
 Nature of Advisory   Permission Escalation
 Susceptibility     Remote Authenticated Sessions
 Severity        Minor
 Exploits Known     No
 Reported On       July 13, 2012
 Reported By       Zubair Ashraf of IBM X-Force Research
 Posted On        August 30, 2012
 Last Updated On     August 30, 2012
 Advisory Contact    Matt Jordan < mjordan AT digium DOT com >
 CVE Name        CVE-2012-2186
 
 Description  The AMI Originate action can allow a remote user to specify
 information that can be used to execute shell commands on
 the system hosting Asterisk. This can result in an unwanted
 escalation of permissions, as the Originate action, which
 requires the "originate" class authorization, can be used
 to perform actions that would typically require the
 "system" class authorization. Previous attempts to prevent
 this permission escalation (AST-2011-006, AST-2012-004)
 have sought to do so by inspecting the names of
 applications and functions passed in with the Originate
 action and, if those applications/functions matched a
 predefined set of values, rejecting the command if the user
 lacked the "system" class authorization. As reported by IBM
 X-Force Research, the "ExternalIVR" application is not
 listed in the predefined set of values. The solution for
 this particular vulnerability is to include the
 "ExternalIVR" application in the set of defined
 applications/functions that require "system" class
 authorization.
 
 Unfortunately, the approach of inspecting fields in the
 Originate action against known applications/functions has a
 significant flaw. The predefined set of values can be
 bypassed by creative use of the Originate action or by
 certain dialplan configurations, which is beyond the
 ability of Asterisk to analyze at run-time. Attempting to
 work around these scenarios would result in severely
 restricting the applications or functions and prevent their
 usage for legitimate means. As such, any additional
 security vulnerabilities, where an application/function
 that would normally require the "system" class
 authorization can be executed by users with the "originate"
 class authorization, will not be addressed. Instead, the
 README-SERIOUSLY.bestpractices.txt file has been updated to
 reflect that the AMI Originate action can result in
 commands requiring the "system" class authorization to be
 executed. Proper system configuration can limit the impact
 of such scenarios.
 
 The next release of each version of Asterisk will contain,
 in addition to the fix for the "ExternalIVR" application,
 an updated README-SERIOUSLY.bestpractices.txt file.
 
 Resolution  Asterisk now checks for the "ExternalIVR" application when
 processing the Originate action.
 
 Additionally, the README-SERIOUSLY.bestpractices.txt file
 has been updated. It is highly recommended that, if AMI is
 utilized with accounts that have the "originate" class
 authorization, Asterisk is run under a defined user that
 does not have root permissions. Accounts with the
 "originate" class authorization should be treated in a
 similar manner to those with the "system" class
 authorization.
 
 Affected Versions
 Product                 Release Series
 Asterisk Open Source                1.8.x           All versions
 Asterisk Open Source                10.x            All versions
 Certified Asterisk                1.8.11           All versions
 Asterisk Digiumphones        10.x.x-digiumphones    All versions
 Asterisk Business Edition             C.3.x           All versions
 
 Corrected In
 Product                              Release
 Asterisk Open Source                   1.8.15.1, 10.7.1
 Certified Asterisk                      1.8.11-cert6
 Asterisk Digiumphones                 10.7.1-digiumphones
 Asterisk Business Edition                     C.3.7.6
 
 Patches
 SVN URL                              Revision
 http://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/security/AST-2012-012-1.8.diff Asterisk
 1.8
 http:downloads.asterisk.org/pub/security/AST-2012-012-10.diff   Asterisk
 10
 
 Links     https://issues.asterisk.org/jira/browse/ASTERISK-20132
 
 Asterisk Project Security Advisories are posted at
 http://www.asterisk.org/security
 
 This document may be superseded by later versions; if so, the latest
 version will be posted at
 http://downloads.digium.com/pub/security/AST-2012-012.pdf and
 http://downloads.digium.com/pub/security/AST-2012-012.html
 
 Revision History
 Date                  Editor                 Revisions Made
 08/27/2012         Matt Jordan               Initial version
 
 Asterisk Project Security Advisory - AST-2012-012
 Copyright (c) 2012 Digium, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 Permission is hereby granted to distribute and publish this advisory in its
 original, unaltered form.
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