It is strongly recommended that you change the write community string for that device.
Most devices that provide SNMP allow enormous amounts of data to be accessed over it. The exact information available depends on the type of device, its manufacturer and model, but generally include details of the hardware and OS type, information on the various network interfaces, statistics on the various network protocols, and general and vendor-specific details about what the device does and is doing. The volume of data available is generally too much to be useful to a systems administrator without some management code to sort through it. The security risks of allowing a potential intruder access to this information depends largely on what type of device it is, but realize that if the data is known to the device, it is probably accessible via SNMP.
Many devices allow themselves to be configured remotely via SNMP as well. Devices which do so generally can be completely configured in such a manner. This can definitely be of use to systems administrators, but also is an obvious security concern.
Despite its popularity, SNMP v1 and v2 have rather basic access control, using
passwords called community strings. Most devices are set up with two community
strings, a (Read) community for viewing information and a Set or Write community
for changing configurations. Many devices come out of the box with SNMP
operational and a read community string of "public
". Write
access often has to be turned on manually, but not always. Needless to say,
care should be taken with both settings.
Some SNMP clients will allow you to restrict which hosts can send some or all write SNMP commands from, and possibly which hosts can get information as well. It is recommended that you configure such if available.
8/9/02
Previously released versions of Avaya
P330, P130 and M770-ATM Cajun family of products contain an undocumented
hard-coded community read/write string that can be used to reset the switch.
Hardware versions that have been tested and confirmed affected include P330T
software version 3.8.2 and 3.9.1, P333R software version 3.8.1 and 3.9.1,
P130, M770-ATM and M770 Supervisor (M-SPX, M-SPS).
If an Avaya user is unable to upgrade to a
fixed
version,
one can mitigate the bug by restricting SNMP access using the
'set allowed managers' command, which appeared in recent Cajun firmware.
Related CVE entries:
CAN 1999-0186 Solaris
CAN 1999-0254 HP OpenView
CAN 2000-0147 SCO OpenServer
CAN 2001-0380 Crosscom/Olicom XLT-F
CAN 2002-0478 Foundry Networks EdgeIron 4802F
CAN 2002-1448 Avaya P330, P130, and M770-ATM Cajun