[REVS] Database Servers on Windows XP - Unintended Consequences of Simple File Sharing

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Database Servers on Windows XP - Unintended Consequences of Simple File
Sharing
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SUMMARY

This paper presents some unexpected consequences of running database
servers on Windows XP with Simple File Sharing enabled. In the real world,
this kind of setup would typically be a developer's system and as it turns
out, in some cases depending on the database software, you might not just
be sharing your files but exposing both database services and data. In one
case an attacker can easily gain DBA access to the database if Simple File
Sharing is enabled. We'll examine the commercial databases, namely,
Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Sybase and Informix and see which are exposed, to
what level and why.

DETAILS

What is Simple File Sharing?
Before Windows XP, to gain access to a shared file on a Windows NT or 2000
box, you needed to have a valid user ID and password - that is assuming
you weren't exploiting some other means to get access. This made it
difficult for people out there that wanted to share files out to the
general public, so with Windows XP, Microsoft introduced Simple File
Sharing. With Simple File Sharing all access is granted via the guest
account. In this way, if a user is sharing music or pictures from their XP
system at home, they don't have to give out a user ID and password to
everyone - people wanting access are simple given access through the guest
account.

For those that want to share files but not with the world and their dog,
these people could just use the classic way of sharing files. By far and
above the most popular way of sharing files on Windows XP is with Simple
File Sharing. As we'll see shortly, this has a significant impact on the
security of a computer if a database server has been installed. But before
exploring this let's look at the differences between simple and normal
file sharing.

To read more: <http://www.ngssoftware.com/papers/database-on-xp.pdf>
http://www.ngssoftware.com/papers/database-on-xp.pdf


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The information has been provided by <mailto:davidl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
David Litchfield.
The original article can be found at:
<http://www.ngssoftware.com/papers/database-on-xp.pdf>
http://www.ngssoftware.com/papers/database-on-xp.pdf



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