Date:         Tue, 23 May 2000 10:00:45 -0500
From: Chris Adams <cmadams@HIWAAY.NET>
Subject:      Problem with FrontPage on Cobalt RaQ2/RaQ3
To: BUGTRAQ@SECURITYFOCUS.COM

There is a security problem with FrontPage extensions on the Cobalt RaQ2
and RaQ3 web hosting appliances.  It allows any user on the system to
change, delete, or overwrite a FrontPage site.

When a site is uploaded with FP to a RaQ2/3, all of the files are owned
by user "httpd" instead of a site-specific user.  The Apache web server
is also running as user "httpd".  Cobalt uses cgiwrap to have CGIs run
as the user that owns the CGI instead of "httpd", but it is trivial to
bypass cgiwrap and run scripts as user "httpd".

You can bypass cgiwrap because the Apache config files have the line
"AllowOverride All".  All you have to do is create an .htaccess file
with these lines in it:

Options +ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi

Then CGIs in that directory will be run with the web server's access as
user "httpd".

As far as I can tell, the only "safe" things in an AllowOverride line in
the Apache config are AuthConfig, Indexes, and Limit (these allow users
some control over their pages without bypassing system security settings
in the server config).

This same AllowOverride setting pretty much nullifies the "Enable CGI
Scripts" and "Enable Server Side Includes" options on the site
administration config for a web site, since CGI and SSI can be enabled
through a .htaccess file even if the administrator disables them.

I reported this to Cobalt on March 3 and got a response that they were
testing a fix that they were going to release the next week.  Then I
discussed it on the cobalt-users mailing list (hosted at Cobalt) the
first week of April, when a Cobalt employee asked me not to take it to
BUGTRAQ because they were working on a fix.  However, almost two months
later (and three months since the problem was initially reported), no
fix is available.
--
Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Information Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.