Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0\r\n

How to Detect, Identify and Defend against SQL Injection?

qbernard — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:40:00 GMT

SQL Injection has been around for many years :) and you probably get over 3 million results when you googled the term. so why is it so HOT now? Well, not so long ago some folks (don't ask me who!!, go read) were claiming that it was an IIS exploit, etc. Hence, all IIS web servers are subjected to this exploit, but the fact is that it has nothing to do with IIS, it is Web application related, so if you have a web/database application that running on Apache or even IBM Websphere, etc, you are subjected to the attack as well when user inputs are not properly validated. In short, the attack uses these input as the command window/line to issue specify command to the database that "not suppose" to happen via the application interface. For example, user can easily manipulate the database scheme and data, or user can even gain further access via the database system to the actual operating system level access.

Anyway, Microsoft just released a security advisory on how to detect via a free scanner from HP, how to protect at IIS level via URLSCAN 3.0 :) take note that this is still beta and how to identify it at coding level via Microsoft Source Code Analyzer for SQL Injection, take note this analyzer only works for ASP.

While the above is useful and helpful, you probably want to educate your developers on secure coding by implementing proper input validation before the input is process by the web or database system. The advisory contains a lot more information about the attack technique, best practices and more. So make sure you forward the details to your developers!!!

IIS KBs - May 2008

qbernard — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:54:00 GMT

Well, for last month we got zero new IIS KB articles, yet few are related to IIS in certain way.

941850 When you try to access files on a WebDAV site that uses only Digest authentication, the process may fail on a Windows Vista-based computer
942039 FIX: Visual Studio 2005 incorrectly creates a subfolder and moves a Web project to the newly created folder

Improving Web Service Security: WCF

qbernard — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:19:00 GMT

The Microsoft Patterns & Practices team just published a beta copy of Improving Web Service Security for WCF or code name Indigo last week. This is another great playbook from the team that gives us many great guides and practices in using Microsoft technologies. If you are into Indigo, this is a must read :)

Here's the chapter outlines:
Chapter 01 - Security Fundamentals for Web Services
Chapter 02 - Threats and Countermeasures for Web Services
Chapter 03 - Security Design Guidelines for Web Services
Chapter 04 - WCF Security Fundamentals
Chapter 05 - Authentication, Authorization and Identities in WCF
Chapter 06 - Impersonation and Delegation in WCF
Chapter 07 - Message and Transport Security in WCF
Chapter 08 - WCF Bindings Fundamentals
Chapter 09 - Intranet – Web to Remote WCF Using Transport Security (Original Caller, TCP)
Chapter 10 - Intranet – Web to Remote WCF Using Transport Security (Trusted Subsystem,HTTP)
Chapter 11 - Intranet – Web to Remote WCF Using Transport Security (Trusted Subsystem TCP)
Chapter 12 - Intranet – Windows Forms to Remote WCF Using Transport Security (Original Caller, TCP)
Chapter 13 - Internet – WCF and ASMX Client to Remote WCF Using Transport Security (Trusted Subsystem, HTTP)
Chapter 14 - Internet – Web to Remote WCF Using Transport Security (Trusted Subsystem, TCP)
Chapter 15 - Internet – Windows Forms Client to Remote WCF Using Message Security (Original Caller, HTTP)

Don't forget to check out more publications at the project directory (tag = patterns & practices) of the site for more practices and guildlines written by Microsoft and external experts from time to time.

IIS KBs - April 2008

qbernard — Mon, 26 May 2008 05:15:00 GMT

949516 Error message when you use the "IMSAdminBase::CopyKey" method as a part of the IIS 6.0 Compatibility components in IIS 7.0: "Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070003"
950735 Error message when you use the Configure Web Synchronization Wizard to configure the virtual directory against a server that is running IIS 7.0: "IIS was not found on the Web Server. Please specify a computer name that has IIS installed"

IIS 7 Shared Hosting Summary

qbernard — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:47:00 GMT

Damn! I love this blog post from Thomas, and you can easily noticed that IIS team has put lot of effort in shared hosting environment, from shared to delegated configuration, and all the way to process model improvements. The dynamicIdleThreshold for example is a fantastic feature for shared hosting, at first I got confused (while working on the IIS 7.0 Reskit Book) with the formula implementation, then Bill hooked me up with Fabio - the main guy behind the logic to give me the full picture about the idea/logic/formula about it. It actually took me a while to understand :) LOL, getting old...

Anyway, another related feature is called Process Gating, well this is not new and was actually in IIS 6.0, but not many know about it. Process gating grants you the ability to specify the maximum worker processes that allow to run concurrently in a machine, this prevent that too many worker processess running and eventually slow down / kill the entire server especially in high density hosting setup. Similar to number of web sites a particular box can support, you need to perform stress testing and trend analysis to understand the usage model,etc before deciding on the reasonable numbers of worker processes to limit and prevent too many worker processess choking the server.

How it works....
Similar to IIS 6.0, IIS 7.0 always performs a demand start for Web application, worker processes only invokes by Windows Process Activation Service (WAS) when the application pool receives the first incoming request. Before WAS initializes the new worker process, it first checks the total number of current running worker processes. If the total amount of worker processes (current + new one) is more than the maximum worker processes allowed, then the new worker process is not started and IIS keeps the request in the queue and wait until the number of worker processes drop below the limit and starts the new worker process.

How to configure....
There is no user interface to enable demandStartThreshold in RTM releases. But with the IIS 7.0 Admin Pack, I think it should be listed as one config item in the new configuration editor, my Vista box is not with me now, so can't verify this. Anyway, you can always configure this via AppCmd.exe. For example, to limit a total of 100 worker processes for a particular IIS 7.0 web server, try

appcmd set config /section:webLimits /demandStartThreshold:100

Upon successfully executing the command syntax, you will see the output shown as below.
Applied configuration changes to section "system.applicationHost/webLimits" for "MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST" at configuration commit path "MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST"

When WAS detects that it hits the demandStartThreshold limit, it writes a warning entry into the System event log. Take note that by default, process gating feature is not enabled, in the sense that the default total number of worker processes allowed is 2147483647 processes, which technically equivalent to no limit.

IIS FTP PassivePortRange

qbernard — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:33:00 GMT

Years ago, I wrote the KB on passive port range at MSKB site -
How To Configure PassivePortRange In IIS
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=555022

Lazy to update the article for IIS 7.0 FTP detail, and I'm not going to add that here :)
Coz you can get it from Microsoft Support Team -
http://blogs.msdn.com/webtopics/archive/2008/05/14/limiting-passive-ftp-port-range-on-iis-7-0-iis-6-0-iis-5-0.aspx

One thing I recalled during testing in the past is that port range only valid from 5001 to 65535.

Security Alerts - April 2008 (Special)

qbernard — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:49:00 GMT

Microsoft revised two security bulletins yesterday. One of which is related to .Net Framework published last year, not major update or new fixes but rather doc updates on changes related to releases of WinXP SP3.

On the other hand, in the recent Hack in the Box conference in Dubai, a new exploit in system account access token has been released to the public. This is related to the native design of current Windows access token in which entire OS is subjected to the vulnerability, and of coz IIS is part of it. Microsoft has released a new security advisory last week, take note that all Windows OSes are affected, ranging from XP, W2k3 and all the way to Vista and W2k8. The current mitigation is to stop using default built-in application pool identity and assign custom account identity for the worker processes.

IIS KBs - March 2008

qbernard — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:30:00 GMT

948801 If an SMTP connector set the Outbound Security option to "Integrated Windows Authentication," the SMTP connector does not work in the IIS Metabase when you restore an Exchange Server 2003 server by using a Disaster Recovery mode
949455 System Center Operations Manager 2007 Reporting installation fails on a Windows Server 2008 computer if IIS 6.0 Management Compatibility is not installed

Security Alerts - April 2008

qbernard — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:20:00 GMT

Oh well, been busy and no time to post this back then. In the routine patch Tuesday this month, Microsoft released 8 security bulletins with 5 of which in critical severity and one specific bulletin is related to IIS in a way. The 08-022 actually replaced the old fixes in 2006.

Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the VBScript and JScript scripting engines in Windows. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

For more information, refer this. Take note that all existing Windows Scripting Engine 5.1/5.5/5.6 on W2k/XP/W2k3 are affected, while Vista/W2k8 are not affected.

Security Alerts - March 2008 (Special)

qbernard — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:09:00 GMT

Today, Microsoft released a major revision for a vulneribility reported last year on .Net Framework. If you running framework version 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0. Please apply the fix asap.

Take note that even you are running 3.0, it is essentially using .Net Framework 2.0 runtime with extra bonus feature like WPF, WCF, etc. Hence, review the bulletin and take appropriate action.

IIS 7.0 Administration Pack!

qbernard — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 02:33:00 GMT

Wow, what can I say? The IIS product team is really spending lot of effort you give you the best experience for IIS 7.0. Today, they released technical preview one for the brand new administration pack! you can take this as UI addon to various configuration in IIS 7.0 with some added features for you to get more out of IIS 7.0

Here's what you going to get if you installed it.

ASP.NET -
ASP.NET features - Authorization + Error pages for your .net authorization and custom error pages

IIS -
Request Filtering - the enchanced URLSCAN in IIS 7.0, this is the UI for you to configure it.
FastCGI - the UI for iisfcgi.dll configuration. this feature is at server level not site.
IIS Reports - fancy graphical chart for your site activities reports. you will need log parser installed for this to work.

Managment -
Configuration Editor - power full config file editor, much better than metabase explorer, allow you to search to entir hierarchy config tree, config locking etc.
IIS Database Manager - one stop UI for you to manage all db connection in IIS 7.0, explorer type of navigation, let you manage db objects, etc.

Read the official Admin Pack walkthrough/doc
and of coz. download it here...... x86, x64.

IIS KBs - February 2008

qbernard — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:34:00 GMT

949348 How to specify a custom location for the isolated configuration file in Internet Information Services 7.0
949349 Error message when you use Server Manager in IIS 7.0 to open a feature configuration page: "Cannot add duplicate collection entry"
949353 The Managed Pipeline Mode setting is not available after you configure an application pool to use the .NET Framework 1.1 in IIS 7.0
949350 You receive an HTTP 500 error message or a blank page appears when you request an ASP.NET resource or WCF resource that is hosted on a server that is running IIS 7.0
949351 You may receive an error message when you use an ASP.NET feature configuration page in IIS 7.0
949076 Opera browsers may crash if they use TLS to connect to an IIS 7.0 Web server that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008

More IIS 7 Downloads

qbernard — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:41:00 GMT

It is hot! with the official release of W2k8 / IIS 7.0, Microsoft has released more goodies for you to experience the new IIS 7.0 revolution, latest releases including the IIS 7.0 Manager or Remote Manager for Vista/XP/Win2k3, as well as the long awaiting WebDav extension for W2k8. And of coz, the best place to look for all IIS 7.0 related download is at iis.net, or get the latest release info via this RSS feed (feed not working yet).

Security Alerts - March 2008

qbernard — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:23:00 GMT

In this month security bulletin, although all critical fixes are related to MS Office, one of the bulletin is related to Office Web Component and hence if you utilizing OWC in your web application, you need to apply the patch asap. Details:

Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Web Components Could Allow Remote Code Execution (933103)
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=933103

Affected software: Office2k (SP3), OfficeXP (SP3), VS.NET 2k2 (SP1), VS.NET 2k3 (SP1)
server: Biztalk 2k + 2k2, Commerce 2k, ISA 2k (SP1)

Take note that Office2k3 SP2/SP3 are not affected.

IIS 7 Released !!!!

qbernard — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:32:00 GMT

It is official now :) lazy to type.... head over to Bill Staples blog post for more info :)
Together with many great stuff from IIS team, including the new FTP component, FPSE, and Web Playlist :) (errr.. related to media server if you are in to media streaming)

Last but not least..... the IIS 7 Resource Kit book, well - this one still with the printing company :) should be at your major book store next month. I have the opportunity to write along with many IIS Gurus including Brett Hill, Mike Volodarsky and lot more. Be sure you get a copy asap!.

IIS KBs - January 2008

qbernard — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 02:22:00 GMT

946086 ISAPI extensions that send long responses to the client may not transmit any output in Internet Information Services 7.0 until the session is closed
946517 FIX: You may be unable to manage IIS 6.0 by using Server Manager if two threads access IIS 6.0 at the same time

Security Alerts - February 2008

qbernard — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:34:00 GMT

In this month security bulletin, there are two important bulletins related to IIS, depend on your environment setup, though it is rated as important, you might want to patch it asap. Here's the bulletin details.

Vulnerability in Internet Information Services Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (942831)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-005.mspx

Take note that for 08-005, it affects IIS 5.0, 5.1, 6.0 and even 7.0 :) (except if you got Vista SP1 or W2k8 RTM), per the bulletin article, IIS 6.0 the vulnerability point is via MSFTPSVC and NNTPSVC.

Vulnerability in Internet Information Services Could Allow Remote Code Execution (942830)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-006.mspx

For 08-006, affected IIS version include IIS 5.1 and 6.0. IIS 5.0 running on W2k SP4 is not affected, same apply to Vista and W2k8. The exploit works via on ASP component.

It is worth mention that, together with two bulletins - IIS 6.0 patches/fixes are still relatively low :) I mean you can count it with one hand ? 1, 2, 3, 4! I lost track a bit as this doesn't happen from time to time so not sure when is the last one. Anyway, per search result. IIS 6.0 related - we got 4. The two above + MS06-034 and MS04-030.

There's no critical bulletin for IIS 6.0 up to date and per information from Microsoft, the latest two vulnerabilities are discovered in-house, and not by the bad guys out there.

Microsoft Web Deployment Tool aka IIS 7 Migration Tool with bonus features.

qbernard — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:24:00 GMT

After a lonnnnng wait !! Today, the IIS team releases the new web deployment tool technical preview 1 :) The deployment tool called msdeploy.exe is essentially a migration toolkit similar with the one the shipped for IIS 6.0. However, the team spent extra effort and includes few extra features in the tool and called 'web deployment tool'. The new tool supports content sync per site or per server (IIS 6 migration tool only support one site per migration and config only), supports SSL cert migration (in IIS 6, you need to manually export the cert and import again in the destination server), etc. It also serves a backup tool where you can archive both content and config and restore the website when needed. It works with IIS 6 and IIS 7, so you can have any combination sync setup for both, say IIS 6-IIS6, IIS6-IIS7, IIS7-IIS7, etc.Take note that due to the changes in IIS 7.0, frontpage and webdav as standalone components are not supported in the deployment tool. For FTP, it does not support migration to the new out-of-band IIS 7 ftp package and etc.

The Web deployment team also started blogging with the release of the tool + new forum section for the tool discussion. You can also download the walkthrough guides from the team. I just quickly glance through the guides, at first it is quite confusing, maybe I was rushing :) This is a pure command line tool - NO GUI :( and with similar concept of AppCmd, Not the syntax format but the general concept of verb action against object. When you unzip the walkthrough, you will few docs + 2 folders (Offline and Remote). Offline walkthroughs demonstrates how you sync the content manually (copy to destination and sync), while remote allow you to sync content + config realtime to a destination server. I also found the msdeploy_readme.html inside the installation path quite useful as it detailed the current known issues and workaround for it.

This is tech preview release and Microsot does not recommended for production usage, so try it out and interact with the product team directly via the blog space or discussion forum at IIS.net. Finally, get the tool here - 32bit - x86_msdeploy.msi, 64bit - amd64_msdeploy.msi (zzzz. amd64? sigh! should be x64_msdeploy.msi)

IIS KBs - December 2007

qbernard — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:53:00 GMT

Well, nothing much last month due to holiday season. Been very lazy as well :) things are slowly settle down for IIS 7 as w2k8 is going to debut soon. hopefully by Feb or March. Anyway, here's the KB list.

946139 You cannot resolve the built-in IIS accounts after you set a Windows Server 2008-based server that is running IIS 7.0 as a domain controller

IIS KBs - November 2007

qbernard — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 04:31:00 GMT

As W2k8 going RC1, Microsoft published more IIS 7.0 related KBs. November KBs are more related to info update regarding capability such as URLSCAN in IIS 7.0 which is replaced by request filtering module, conslidated IIS 7.0 HTTP status code, etc. As for me, been very busy with work, just got back from US yesterday, still jetlag'ing...working hard to finish my chapters for IIS 7.0 resource kit book with MSPress and going holiday this weekend :)

Anyway, here's the Nov KB list for IIS.
944886 Error message when you use the Response.BinaryWrite method in IIS 6 and in IIS 7: "HTTP 500" or "Response buffer limit exceeded"
944885 Information about the configuration of cluster resources in Internet Information Services 7.0
943891 The HTTP status codes in IIS 7.0
944836 Information about the UrlScan 2.5 features that are included in IIS 7.0
944884 Description of the time-taken field in IIS 6.0 and IIS 7.0 HTTP logging