Title: VolanoChatPro stores plain text password in a publicly accessible

file.

Date: November 4, 2000

Risk: Low. No system privileges are granted.

Vendor Site: http://www.volano.com





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VolanoChatPro, a widely used chat server on the Internet, allows anyone

with access to the filesystem to obtain chat server admin access.



In the directory where VolanoChatPro is installed, there is a file named

"properties.txt".  This file stores the config for the server, including

the value of server.password and admin.password.  After install, the

permissions on this file are "-rw-r--r--".



I contacted the vendor on August 2, 2000 and have gotten no response.  I

think a workaround would be to change the permissions so that only the

owner can read the file.  I asked the vendor if this would cause any other

problems or if the product would reset the permissions and got no

response. This is not addressed in documentation.



I was saddened to see that the company lists many high profile customers

(Sun, Rational, AT&T Worldnet, Dept. of Energy, etc. See

http://www.volano.com/customers.html), but wouldn't respond to a security

email.







.:Shout outs to:.

 - /* Commander Crash */  -- Driver, pull over at the next cross-over.

 - Scanman