Advisory Details

This vulnerability allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable installations of Borland StarTeam. Authentication is not required to exploit this vulnerability.

The specific flaw exists within the AttachmentService servlet in the FILECHECKOUT operation. The performCheckoutFile() function allows for reading and subsequent deletion of an arbitrary file by specifying the file path. A remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability to disclose files from the system.

This vulnerability is being disclosed publicly without a patch in accordance with the ZDI vulnerability disclosure policy on lack of vendor response.

Vendor Contact Timeline:
June 27, 2013:
- Sent email request for contact
July 30, 2013:
- Sent email request for contact
July 31, 2013:
- Sent explanation of our request by email
August 1, 2013:
- Sent request for a PGP key
August 2, 2013:
- Sent explanation of our request by email
August 5, 2013:
- Sent request for a PGP key
August 14, 2013:
- Sent email request for contact
February 19, 2014:
- Sent email request for contact

-- Mitigation:
Given the stated purpose of StarTeam, and the nature of the vulnerability, the only salient mitigation strategy is to restrict interaction with the service to trusted machines. Only the clients and servers that have a legitimate procedural relationship with the Borland StarTeam service should be permitted to communicate with it. This could be accomplished in a number of ways, most notably with firewall rules/whitelisting. These features are available in the native Windows Firewall, as described in http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725770%28WS.10%29.aspx and numerous other Microsoft Knowledge Base articles.

• 2013-06-27 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
• 2014-05-05 - Coordinated public release of advisory