Barracuda Networks

Recently, security researchers discovered an issue where arbitrary code could be injected into the beginning of a TLS/SSL session during key renegotiation by a remote attacker conducting a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack. In order for code to be injected an attacker would need access to a network along the path of communication between the client and the server. Details of the vulnerability can be viewed here:

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3555
https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/120541

Barracuda Networks resolved this issue by disabling TLS/SSL renegotiation and making generally available firmware releases for the following products:

Barracuda IM Firewall Release 4.2.01.001
Barracuda Link Balancer Release 1.3.2.005
Barracuda Load Balancer Release 3.1.015
Barracuda Message Archiver Release 2.1.0.015
Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall Release 4.0.1.010
Barracuda SSL VPN Release 1.5.0.29
Barracuda Web Application Firewall Release 7.3.2.012
Barracuda Web Filter Release 4.2.0.012

For maximum protection, Barracuda Networks recommends that all customers upgrade to the latest generally available release of the firmware.

At approximately 8:30AM PDT, one server in the Barracuda Networks update infrastructure experienced a database corruption. As a side effect of this incident, a subset of customer systems running newer firmware releases querying for subscription and activation status received invalid responses. Upon receiving these invalid responses, the affected Barracuda Networks products displayed error messages indicating an inactivated state. Other than potential interactions with the graphical user interface when changing configurations or after a hard reboot, Barracuda Networks products continued to operate in their normal capacity.

At approximately 8:45AM PDT, the affected server was taken offline and a redundant server was put in production to properly respond to subscription and activation status queries. By 10:00AM PDT, all affected Barracuda Networks products in the field should have been displaying proper activation and subscription status. Since this incident, Barracuda Networks has implemented software mitigation techniques to detect this form of database corruption and to suppress invalid query responses going forward.

Barracuda Networks resolved this issue and all affected products should report the correct status. If any Barracuda Networks products still report the wrong subscription or activation status, please contact Barracuda Networks Technical Support.

As a side effect of the recent security definition 2.0.1 (2009-08-14), legacy Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewalls running Firmware Release 3.5.10 and 3.5.11 experienced issues with SNMP queue monitoring and troubleshooting utilities.

Barracuda Networks reverted these changes on these older firmware versions through security definition 2.0.2 (2009-08-18) to resolve the issues with SNMP queue monitoring and troubleshooting utilities. With this change, administrators are encouraged to upgrade Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewalls running Firmware Release 3.5.10 and 3.5.11 the latest generally available release to be protected from the Barracuda Console Configuration Tool issue discovered by security researcher Jon Oberheide

For maximum protection, Barracuda Networks recommends that all customers upgrade to the latest generally available release of the firmware 3.5.12.023 (2009-08-18) and ensure that security definitions are set to On.

Recently, security researcher Jon Oberheide (jon@oberheide.org) discovered and worked with Barracuda Networks to resolve a field input validation issue in the Barracuda Console Configuration Tool. Reproducing the issue requires physical access to the Barracuda Networks appliance itself through physical keyboard and monitor connections. The issue does not apply to any access over networking protocols.

Barracuda Networks resolved this issue identified by Jon Oberheide (jon@oberheide.org) by making generally available firmware releases for the following products and issuing a security definition 2.0.1 (2009-08-14):

Barracuda IM Firewall Release 4.0 (2009-06-29)
Barracuda Link Balancer Release 1.1.030 (2009-04-27)
Barracuda Load Balancer Release 3.0 (2009-07-07)
Barracuda Message Archiver Release 2.1 (2009-08-04)
Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall Release 3.5.12.012 (2009-04-06)
Barracuda SSL VPN Release 1.2.7.010 (2009-05-11)
Barracuda Web Application Firewall Release 7.3 (2009-07-16)
Barracuda Web Filter Release 4.1.0.015 (2009-05-01)

For maximum protection, Barracuda Networks recommends that all customers upgrade to the latest generally available release of the firmware and ensure that security definitions are set to On.

On June 10, 2009, Barracuda Networks Inc, the worldwide leader of content security appliances, became aware of a Web Site promoting a rogue spyware program called “Barracuda Antivirus.” If downloaded, the program will install spyware that will display pop-up ads and other unwanted applications.

The “Barracuda Antivirus” program is not in any way associated with Barracuda Networks and is just one of a string of recent examples of hackers attempting to spread malicious programs using an established and trusted security brand. All Barracuda Networks products have been updated with the latest definitions to protect our customers from visiting or downloading content from this rogue site.

Barracuda Networks has also contacted fellow Internet security vendors to ensure that their databases are also updated to protect customers from inadvertently accessing the Web sites.

Recently, security researcher Jan Skovgren, Security Consultant at FortConsult (www.fortconsult.com) discovered and worked with Barracuda Networks to resolve a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the Barracuda Load Balancer login page. Under certain circumstance where the Barracuda Load Balancer management user interface is accessible over the Internet, it was possible for potential attackers to insert Javascript code into parameters.

Barracuda Networks resolved this issue identified by Jan Skoygren in firmware release 2.4.006 (2008-12-15).

For maximum protection, Barracuda Networks recommends that all customers either restrict Internet access to the management user interface from their network firewalls or upgrade to the latest generally available release of the firmware.

Recently, security researcher Dr. Marian Ventuneac of Data Communication Security Laboratory, Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at University of Limerick, discovered and worked with Barracuda Networks to resolve input field validation and HTML encoding issues in select Barracuda Networks products that resulted in cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in specific screens and fields.

Reproducing all of these issues required that administrators log in to the appliance.

Barracuda Networks resolved all of the issues identified by Dr. Ventuneac by making generally available firmware releases for the following products:

Barracuda Message Archiver Release 1.2.1.002 (2008-07-22)
Barracuda Spam Firewall Release 3.5.12.007 (2008-10-24)
Barracuda Web Filter Release 3.3.0.052 (2008-08-04)
Barracuda IM Firewall Release 3.1.01.017 (2008-07-02)
Barracuda Load Balancer Release 2.3.024 (2008-10-20)

The CERT CVE number for these reported issues is CVE-2008-0971.

For maximum protection, Barracuda Networks recommends that all customers upgrade to the latest generally available release of the firmware.

Recently, security researcher Dr. Marian Ventuneac of Data Communication Security Laboratory, Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at University of Limerick, discovered and worked with Barracuda Networks to resolve a potential issue in the Barracuda Spam Firewall Users -> Account View page. Reproducing the issue requires administrators to first log in to the Barracuda Spam Firewall, visit the Users -> Account View page and select the 'Message Count =' search filter from a list of over a dozen search filters. In the pattern field, it was possible to inject SQL which could lead to direct access to the configuration database.

Barracuda Networks resolved this issue identified by Dr. Ventuneac of Data Communication Security Laboratory by making generally available firmware release 3.5.12.007 (2008-10-24). The issue itself carried a low risk rating, because it required access as a global administrator that already has unrestricted read/write access to the configuration database through the application itself. The CERT CVE number for this reported issue is CVE-2008-1094.

For maximum protection, Barracuda Networks recommends that all customers upgrade to the latest generally available release of the firmware.

On July 14, 2008, Barracuda Networks released Barracuda Spam Firewall Release 3.5.12.001 into beta release. Upon upgrading to firmware release 3.5.12, three one-time configuration changes will be made to your Barracuda Spam Firewall:

1. Disabling of bounce messages. On the Basic -> Spam Scoring page, in the Spam Bounce (NDR) Configuration section, the Send Bounce field will be set to No.
   
   Because of the growing number of spam emails spoofing addresses of good email senders, this change is being made to avoid sending bounce messages to innocent parties.
   
   
2. Removal of Spamhaus external block lists previously listed as “Common External Blacklists.” On the Block/Accept -> IP Reputation page, the following Spamhaus external block lists will be removed from the Custom External RBLs list: sbl.spamhaus.org, xbl.spamhaus.org and sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org.
   
   The Barracuda Spam Firewall used to enable Spamhaus external block lists by default when usage of those lists was free to all Internet users. Now that Spamhaus is seeking license fees from some Internet users, this change is being made to remove the previous default settings and to ensure that Barracuda Spam Firewall customers do not experience problems or unexpected service interruptions.
   
   
3. Replacement of removed Spamhaus external block lists with Barracuda IP Reputation. If any Spamhaus external block lists were removed by the previous action and the Barracuda IP Reputation field was set to Off, the Barracuda IP Reputation will be set to the most restrictive action of all of the removed Spamhaus external block lists.
   
   For example, if sbl.spamhaus.org was set to Block and Barracuda IP Reputation was set to Off, the upgrade would remove sbl.spamhaus.org from the Custom External RBLs list and set Barracuda IP Reputation to Block.
   
   The purpose of this change is to maintain or improve performance of the Barracuda Spam Firewall. Barracuda Networks strongly recommends blocking based on Barracuda IP Reputation, and this blocking is particularly important when external block lists such as Spamhaus are not in use.
   
   

These changes will be made only once. If you want to re-enable bounce messages and reinsert the affected Spamhaus external block lists, you may do so manually after the upgrade.

Barracuda Networks recommends that you create a new backup of your configuration after upgrading to firmware release 3.5.12.

Recently, security researcher Mark Crowther of Information Risk Management (research@irmplc.com / www.irmplc.com) discovered and worked with Barracuda Networks to resolve a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the Barracuda Spam Firewall ldap_test.cgi script. If a Barracuda Spam Firewall had unrestricted access from the Internet and no Administrator IP/Range configured, JavaScript code could be inserted in the parameters allowing for the possibility of cross-site scripting attacks.

Barracuda Networks resolved this issue identified by Information Risk Management by making generally available firmware release 3.5.11.025 (2008-05-16).

For maximum protection, Barracuda Networks recommends that all customers upgrade to the latest generally available release of the firmware.

On March 11, 2008 at 4:45 PM PDT, virus definition 2.2.18205 contained an incompatibility with Barracuda Spam Firewalls running legacy firmware release 3.4.10.087 and earlier, using current virus definitions.  This incompatibility was the result of an invalid reference in the virus system maintenance routines and triggered the “hold down” protections in the Barracuda Spam Firewall.  To protect our customers against potential errors in the virus system maintenance, the Barracuda Spam Firewall has a built-in precautionary “hold down” feature that automatically prevents email from being sent and keeps potentially infected emails from being delivered.

Any Barracuda Spam Firewall in the field running legacy firmware that received virus definition 2.2.18205 immediately began to queue all incoming messages.  Because the change affected the virus system maintenance routines, reverting and updating virus definitions did not resolve the issue.  At 9:00 PM PDT, spam definitions 3.0.69866 and 3.1.44577 were released that contained configuration settings and a forced restart of the email scanning engine to mitigate the issue.

For all affected customers, Barracuda Spam Firewalls resumed normal processing of email once they downloaded the new spam definition. No email should have been lost as the result of this delay.

Recently, security researcher Federico Kirschbaum reported an issue in the Barracuda Spam Firewall Web administration interface to Barracuda Networks. A cross-site scripting vulnerability existed when logging in with a username containing JavaScript injections only while the “Monitor Web Syslog” screen was already opened by an authenticated user.

The risk rating of this issue is low, because the usage of the “Monitor Web Syslog” screen is largely a diagnostic utility and not typically used once syslog outputs are set up in production environments.

Barracuda Networks resolved this issue identified by Mr. Kirschbaum with generally available firmware release 3.5.10.016 (2007-09-06).

For maximum protection, Barracuda Networks recommends that all customers upgrade to the latest generally available release of the firmware.

Zoo is an archive file format and legacy compression program that was popular in the mid-1980s. To support decompression of legacy zoo file archives used in virus checking and enforcing file attachment policy, the Barracuda Spam Firewall includes the zoo program. Recently, security researcher Jean-Sébastien Guay-Leroux discovered an implementation error in the zoo program which could result in an infinite loop and high utilization of system resources in certain solutions.

On Monday, March 19, 2007, Barracuda Networks delivered system settings to all Barracuda Spam Firewalls in the field to disarm the potential zoo program vulnerability through Energize Updates. Barracuda Networks credits Mr. Guay-Leroux on his research of this vulnerability and his proposals for a mitigation strategy. Moreover, Barracuda Networks has changed new systems shipping out of the factory to mitigate this zoo program vulnerability.

All Barracuda Spam Firewalls running firmware release 3.4 or higher and virus definition 2.0.6399 or higher, should be free from the vulnerability identified by Mr. Guay-Leroux. In addition, Barracuda Spam Firewalls running firmware releases earlier than release 3.4 and virus definition versions at 2.06399o or later should also be free from this vulnerability.

For maximum protection, Barracuda Networks recommends that all customers upgrade to the latest generally available release of the firmware.

On March 29, 2007 at 5:00 PM PDT, virus definition 2.1.6 targeted at recent Internet threat activity contained an incompatibility with legacy Barracuda Spam Firewall firmware releases 3.3 and earlier. To protect our customers against potential errors with incompatible versions, the Barracuda Spam Firewall has a built-in precautionary feature which automatically prevents email from being sent and keeps potentially infected emails from being delivered. Any Barracuda Spam Firewall in the field running legacy firmware that had received virus definition 2.1.6 immediately began to queue all incoming messages until a backward compatible virus definition became available. At 9:16 PM PDT, a backward compatible virus definition 2.1.18o was released. For all affected customers, Barracuda Spam Firewalls resumed normal processing of email once they downloaded the new definition, and no email should have been lost as the result of this delay. Barracuda Networks customers are strongly advised to update to the latest generally available firmware release for the most up-to-date protection against Internet threats.

The annual start and end dates for Daylight Savings Time (DST) in the United States will be changing on March 11, 2007, due to the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (USA: Public Law 109-58 / 109th Congress / Section 110). Clocks in the United States will need to "Spring Forward" one hour on the second Sunday in March (three weeks earlier than the previous first Sunday in April), and will "Fall Back" one hour on the first Sunday in November (one week later than the previous last Sunday in October).

Support for this change to DST is currently available in all Barracuda Networks products running the following firmware versions:

• Barracuda Spam Firewall, version 3.4.08.038 and higher
• Barracuda Web Filter, version 3.1.0.30 and higher
• Barracuda IM Firewall, version 2.1.03 and higher
• Barracuda Load Balancer, version 1.4.031 and higher

Any systems that are not already on at least the firmware versions named above should be upgraded as soon as possible to the latest available version.

On February 6, 2007 at 8:35 am PST, a virus definition was released that contained an incorrect spam fingerprint definition (virus definition 2.0.3936) to Barracuda Spam Firewalls running firmware release 3.4 and higher. This incorrect definition was removed by 9:15 am PST on the same day with virus definition 2.0.3939. Affected messages were blocked with a reason code of Fingerprint (TXT1). Please note that customers running firmware release 3.4 may see messages initially logged in the user interface with a delivery status of "blocked" that may have been ultimately delivered to end users through a subsequent update. Customers are advised to check for any potential false positives blocked for fingerprint definition TXT1 that were not subsequently delivered to end users. The root cause of this issue was operational in nature. Preventative measures have been implemented into Barracuda Central operations.

Barracuda Central maintains two different forms of virus definition files. One form is used specifically for Barracuda Spam Firewalls running firmware release 3.4 and higher. The other form is denoted with a suffix of "o" in the version number and is used for the Barracuda Web Filter, Barracuda IM Firewall, and any Barracuda Spam Firewalls running versions earlier than release 3.4. On February 1, 2007 at 2:07am PST, Barracuda Central published virus definition 2.0.3606o to all Barracuda Spam Firewalls, creating a mismatch for those releases running firmware release 3.4 and higher. Upon detecting an incorrect virus definition file, Barracuda Spam Firewalls in the field immediately invoked a built-in precautionary mechanism to prevent potentially harmful emails from being sent. By 2:38am PST, a new virus definition file 2.0.3607 was issued to remedy this situation. During this period, the Barracuda Spam Firewalls accepted all messages and simply deferred them in a queue until they downloaded a new virus definition automatically. No email was lost as the result of this issue. This event was unrelated to the operational issue described in Technical Alert No. 20070131.

On January 31, 2007 at 2:20 pm PST, a virus definition was released that contained an incorrect spam fingerprint definition (virus definition 2.0.3568) to Barracuda Spam Firewalls running firmware release 3.4 and higher. This incorrect definition was removed by 3:15pm PST on the same day with virus definition 2.0.3572. Affected messages were blocked with a reason code of Fingerprint (IMG6370628). Please note that customers running firmware release 3.4 may see messages initially logged in the user interface with a delivery status of "blocked" that may have been ultimately delivered to end users through a subsequent update. Customers are advised to check for any potential false positives blocked for fingerprint definition IMG6370628 that were not subsequently delivered to end users. The root cause of this issue was operational in nature. Preventative measures for this particular issue have already been implemented into Barracuda Central operations.

On January 23, 2007 at 8:57pm PST, a content filter definition was released that had errors in the “Proxies” category (content filter definition 1.0.387). With this definition, Barracuda Web Filter policies blocking the “Proxies” content category also blocked certain sites normally categorized under the “Search Engine & Portals” category. By January 24, 2007 at 7:23am PST, a new content filter definition (1.0.389) was published. All Barracuda Web Filter systems in the field with active Energize Updates subscriptions should have been automatically updated with the corrected content filter definition by 10:38am PST the same day. The cause of these errors was an operational error at Barracuda Central, and it has been resolved. Additional quality assurance processes including both human and software checks have been implemented to avoid this problem in the future.

The Barracuda Spam Firewall incorporates rules that protect users from a potentially harmful vulnerability in Adobe Reader.

The Adobe Reader vulnerability affects those users who utilize the Adobe Reader plug-in that enables Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) files to be opened from within their Web browsers. To facilitate features such as populating fields in Acrobat forms, the Adobe Reader contains the ability to pass URL parameters in Web links to the Adobe Reader plug-in. However, if scripts are embedded within the URL parameters, an attacker can run code in the user’s Web browser. The exploit can be run against PDF documents posted on reputable Web sites without requiring an attacker to compromise that site in any way.

To prevent the proliferation of emails that could exploit this vulnerability, the Barracuda Spam Firewall now incorporates rules that look for URLs referencing PDF files that contain URL parameters. When scored with indicators of scripting, the Barracuda Spam Firewall will automatically block these messages, protecting users from potentially dangerous attacks.

All existing Barracuda Spam Firewall customers with active Energize Updates subscriptions are currently protected against this vulnerability. Existing customers running the version 3.0 spam rule definitions should ensure that their version number is at 3.0.30651 or higher. Existing customers running the version 3.1 spam rule definitions should ensure that their version number is 3.1.5316 or higher. Messages blocked by these rules can be identified with the rule name PDF_EXPLOIT in the Barracuda Spam Report Rule Breakdown in the blocked message headers.

To support multiple types of message encoding, the Barracuda Spam Firewall utilizes an underlying encoder/decoder library known commonly as Convert-Uulib. Older versions of this underlying library contained a security vulnerability if called with invalid values. Barracuda Networks credits security researcher Jean-Sébastien Guay-Leroux on his research of this vulnerability and its impact on the Barracuda Spam Firewall running versions earlier than 3.4.09.

As part of normal ongoing feature development, Barracuda Networks updated the underlying encoder/decoder library with firmware release 3.4.09 and later. The most current generally available releases of firmware are not subject to this known vulnerability.

Moreover, on November 29, 2006, system settings were delivered to all Barracuda Spam Firewalls in the field via Energize Updates to disable the underlying mechanisms behind this known vulnerability.

No Barracuda Spam Firewalls with current Energize Updates subscriptions should be subject to the vulnerability identified by Mr. Guay-Leroux. Barracuda Networks recommends that all customers upgrade to the latest generally available release of the firmware.

Barracuda Networks had been working with a security researcher, Greg Sinclair - security (at) nnlsoftware (dot) com - on two past vulnerabilities related to both file disclosure and guest access. On August 3, 2006, system settings were delivered to all Barracuda Spam Firewalls in the field via Energize Updates to disable the underlying mechanisms behind these vulnerabilities. As such, no Barracuda Spam Firewalls with current Energize Updates subscriptions should be affected by these vulnerabilities.

As part of the test rollout, these settings were initially delivered with the upgrade to early release firmware 3.4.05.017 on July 14, 2006. These settings were later successfully delivered with the upgrade to generally available firmware 3.3.03.055 on July 18, 2006. While it is generally recommended that customers upgrade to the latest release, these upgrades are no longer necessary for protection against these specific vulnerabilities identified by Mr. Sinclair.

To avoid future vulnerabilities, Barracuda Networks recommends that customers restrict unnecessary external Web access to their Barracuda Spam Firewalls.

Barracuda Networks credited Mr. Sinclair with his discovery in the release notes for firmware release 3.4.05.017.

On June 13, 2006 at 4:53 AM PDT today, a faulty virus definition was released that had an incomplete virus database (virus definition 1.5.144). To protect our customers in the event such a circumstance occurred, the Barracuda Spam Firewall has a built in precautionary feature which automatically prevents email from being sent through in order to keep potentially infected emails from being delivered. Any Barracuda Spam Firewall in the field that had received virus definition 1.5.144 immediately began to queue all incoming messages until the complete virus database became available. At 7:02 AM PDT, the majority of Barracuda Spam Firewalls automatically received virus definition 1.5.145 containing the complete virus database, and email began to process normally for those customers previously affected. The cause of the incomplete virus definition has been identified and resolved, and additional measures have been put in place to prevent this issue from occuring in the future.