A key Internet security protocol has been discovered to be vulnerable to some string formats and may cause serious problems. Read more…

The protocol is ISAKMP or Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol and is used in products from companies like Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks.

Researchers from the University of Oulu - Finland, discovered the vulnerabilities and warned that if they are exploited can cause even denial-of-service attacks.

A flaw in a key Internet security protocol used by major networking products could open systems up to denial-of-service and other kinds of attacks, experts have warned. “These flaws may expose denial-of-service conditions, format string vulnerabilities, and buffer overflows,” the advisory said. All these could shut down devices and slow transmission of data across the Internet. In some cases, they could also allow hackers to execute code and hijack a device”

ISAKMP is used in IPsec virtual private network and firewall products from companies like Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks. Even-tough the vulnerabilities differ by software vendor they exist.

Cisco already is distributing fixes which are available on their website. Their affected products are Cisco IOS, Cisco PIX Firewall, Cisco Firewall Services Module, Cisco VPN 3000 Series Concentrators and the Cisco MDS Series SanOS.

At Juniper the situation has been known since July and they provided fixes in their software released after that date. All of their M-series, T-series, J-series and E-series routers, and some versions of Junos and JunoSe Security software were affected so they came up then, quickly, with the fixes.