IBM DB2 Remote Command Execution Privilege Upgrade

NGSSoftware Insight Security Research Advisory

Name: IBM DB2 Remote Command Execution Privilege Upgrade
Systems Affected: DB2 8.1 Enterprise Edition on Windows
Severity: High/Low depending on environment
Vendor URL: http://www.ibm.com/
Author: David Litchfield [ david@ngssoftware.com ]
Date Vendor Notified:    6th September 2003
Date of Public Advisory: 9th March 2004
Advisory number: #NISR09032004
Advisory URL: http://www.ngssoftware.com/advisories/db2rmtcmd.txt

Description
***********
IBM’s DB2 is the market share leader for database server software. One of
the components, the Remote Command Server, contains a vulnerability that can
allow attackers to gain administrative privileges on the server running DB2.

Details
*******
DB2 with the Remote Command Server, DB2RCMD.EXE, listens on a named pipe
DB2REMOTECMD and executes commands sent through it. When a connection is
made to the pipe a new process is created, namely db2rcmdc.exe, and this
executes the command. Whilst a valid Windows user id and password are
required the command executes with the privileges of the “db2admin” account
which is an administrator.

This essentially means that even a low privileged “Guest” account can run
commands remotely with administrative privileges. This can lead to a
compromise of the server running DB2.

Fix Information
***************
IDM have included a fix for this problem in Fixpak 5 -
http://www-306.ibm.com/cgi-bin/db2www/data/db2/udb/winos2unix/support/v8fphist.d2w/report .
The APAR for this specific issue is IY53894 -
http://www-306.ibm.com/cgi-bin/db2www/data/db2/udb/winos2unix/support/aparlib.d2w/display_apar_details?aparno=IY53894 .

About NGSSoftware
*****************
NGSSoftware design, research and develop intelligent, advanced application
security assessment scanners. Based in the United Kingdom, NGSSoftware have
offices in the South of London and the East Coast of Scotland. NGSSoftware’s
sister company NGSConsulting, offers best of breed security consulting
services, specialising in application, host and network security
assessments.

http://www.ngssoftware.com/

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