Many companies running BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) could be inadvertently
opening a door to attackers, a penetration testing company has found.

Penetration testing consultancy NTA
Monitor found that most of its customers running the BlackBerry Server with
Microsoft Exchange were taking the path of least resistance by opening unencrypted
ports from the heart of their network to service providers. The providers, in
turn, opened a return back to the BES that would pass through firewalls without
any policies being applied.

This left the network open on several levels, including session hijacking,
IP spoofing, or just the interception of unencrypted traffic.

"A hacker could potentially use this back channel to move around inside
an organization undetected, removing confidential information or installing
malware on to the network," said Roy Hills, NTA's technical director.

According to NTA Monitor's technical manager, Adrian Goodhead, the open configuration
was no accident of poor implementation, accounting for a sizeable 10-15 of the
company's enterprise-level customers using BlackBerry handhelds (roughly 70-80
percent of the total base they surveyed). The commonest cause was simply cost.

The company recommends implementing a BES in a demilitarized zone (DMZ), which
would isolate attacks against the sever from the wider network. However, this
added complexity, and added complexity added expense.

"You have to add various software and hardware. People are trying to keep
costs down," said Goodhead.

He characterized the flaw as low-to-medium in severity because "it requires
a fair amount of knowledge" to exploit, but nevertheless one that needed
to be addressed.

Goodhead criticized the service providers for not explaining that a more expensive
implementation was usually necessary for security reasons. BlackBerry, for its
part, gave details of how to implement its technology securely, he said, and
so couldn't be blamed.

NTA Monitor, which recently found holes in VPNs offers several general security
recommendations for clients using BES. These include using SSL encryption, enabling
content protection on the handheld, disallowing non-approved applications --
including P2P messaging -- and turning off Bluetooth on the handheld.

» posted by abennett

Techworld.com

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