News
SQL Vulnerabilities Disclosed
- By Scott Bekker
- July 15, 2002
Microsoft-centric database administrators were greeted last week with a pair of security bulletins about new problems with SQL Server and the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE).
Both bulletins dealt with elevation of privilege vulnerabilities that Microsoft considered "moderate" on its threat-risk scale.
The first bulletin involved only SQL Server 2000 and MSDE 2000, not previous versions of the product. The cumulative patch addressed all previous SQL Server 2000 vulnerabilities, plus three new vulnerabilities, all of which posed moderate security risks.
Two of the new risks were buffer overruns, while the third was a privilege elevation condition.
To see the Microsoft Security Bulletin on the issue, visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms02-034.asp.
The second vulnerability involved SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000 and several service packs for both databases. The problem arose from the way Microsoft stored passwords entered during the setup of the database.
Clear-text storage in certain locations and weakly encrypted passwords located in other places could allow an attacker with the ability to interactively log on to the server to obtain the passwords.
More information on that issue is available at:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms02-035.asp.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.