Product:	Impacted Versions:	CVE ID:	Impact of Vulnerabilities:	Severity Ratings:	CVSS v3.1 Base/Temporal Scores:
AMCore V3 DAT content with Endpoint Security (ENS) for Windows	AMCore V3 DAT content 4404.x and prior	CVE-2020-7308	CWE-319: Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information	Medium	4.8 / 4.3
Recommendations:	Update to the following ENS versions, which use GTI-REST by default: ENS 10.7.0 September 2021 Update or later ENS 10.6.1 September 2021 Update or later If you have these ENS versions or later, you don’t need to take any further action and you can ignore the steps in this Security Bulletin. Otherwise, update the AMCore V3 DAT content source to pull from CommonUpdater3 and install or update to: ENS 10.7.0 November 2020 Update or later ENS 10.6.1 November 2020 Update or later
Security Bulletin Replacement:	None
Location of updated software:	Product Downloads site

 
Article contents:

• Vulnerability Description
• Remediation
• Product Specific Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Resources
• Disclaimer

Vulnerability Description
The Global Threat Intelligence over DNS (GTI-DNS) service has been in production for about 12 years, to provide cloud-based reputation services. At the time of its launch, most internet traffic was not encrypted. GTI-DNS used a fixed key to partially encrypt the most sensitive information. Since then, we have updated most of our products and cloud services to use encrypted communication facilities such as TLS. The latest evolution of our GTI service is GTI-REST. GTI-REST runs only over TLS 1.2 and does not support unauthenticated clients. Our GTI-REST POPs (point of presence) receive an A rating from SSL Labs.

In the legacy GTI-DNS service, it is possible to snoop DNS traffic and determine the number of malicious objects on a system, and map known hashes to the encrypted version by examining the A record. Or, if an attacker were to gain control of an intermediate DNS server, they could modify the DNS configuration to redirect DNS requests to a server under their control. Either of these techniques would enable an attacker to intercept A record queries and send a spoof response to say that a malicious file is clean. Snooping the traffic to see the requests and responses to and from our servers is relatively easy to do. But, it is less easy to gain access to a DNS server and alter the data sent to the client.

GTI is used as a real-time enhancement to daily DAT content. It is important to remember that spoofing a clean A record as described above has the same behavior as systems that don't use GTI (either by configuration or lack of internet connectivity). These systems are more dependent on our regularly updated local content to ensure protection. Moreover, if an attacker spoofs an A record to suggest to the product that a clean file is malicious, the product verifies this response by requesting a confirmatory TXT record from GTI-DNS. Unlike the A record, the TXT record is digitally signed. This mechanism prevents attackers from orchestrating a DoS (denial-of-service) by convicting clean files.
 
CVE-2020-7308
Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information between Endpoint Security (ENS) for Windows prior to 10.7.0 November 2020 Update and Global Threat Intelligence (GTI) servers using DNS allows a remote attacker to view the requests from ENS and responses from GTI over DNS. By gaining control of an intermediate DNS server or altering the network DNS configuration, it is possible for an attacker to intercept requests and send their own responses.
https://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2020-7308   
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2020-7308
 
Remediation
To remediate this issue, make sure you are running a version equal to or later than the ones detailed below:

• Update your configuration to receive content updates from CommonUpdater3 until otherwise notified, and make sure you are using AMCore V3 DAT content version 4405.1 or later.
• Customers on ENS 10.7.0: Update to ENS 10.7.0 November 2020 Update or later.
• Customers on ENS 10.6.1 and earlier versions: Upgrade to ENS 10.7.0 November 2020 Update or later, or update to ENS 10.6.1 November 2020 Update or later.

Once you have installed the update, see the Product Specific Notes section for the next steps.

Go to the Product Downloads site, and download the applicable product update file:
 

Product	Version	Type	Release Date
ENS for Windows	10.7.0 November 2020 Update 10.6.1 November 2020 Update	Update	November 10, 2020

 
Download and Installation Instructions
For instructions to download product updates and hotfixes, see: KB56057 - How to download Enterprise product updates and documentation. Review the Release Notes and the Installation Guide for instructions on how to install these updates. All documentation is available  on the Product Documentation site.
 
Product Specific Notes

• This feature is currently offered as an opt-in. Once you have installed the relevant update, you need to follow the instructions in KB94339 - REGISTERED - Redirect Endpoint Security AMCore to use REST supported content to enable the feature.
  NOTE: The referenced content is available only to logged in ServicePortal users. To view the content, click the link and log in when prompted.
• There is a dependency on updated AMCore V3 DAT content from CommonUpdater3 released on or after April 13, 2021.

Acknowledgments
We credit the following for responsibly reporting this flaw:

Asaf Nadler from Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Ron Bitton from Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Oleg Brodt from Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Asaf Shabtai from Ben Gurion University of the Negev
 
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How do I know if my product is vulnerable or not?
For Endpoint Security on Windows:
Use the following instructions for endpoint or client-based products:

1. Right-click the McAfee tray shield icon on the Windows taskbar.
2. Select McAfee Endpoint Security.
3. In the console, select Action Menu.
4. In the Action Menu, select About. The product version displays.

What is CVSS?
CVSS, or Common Vulnerability Scoring System, is the result of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council's effort to standardize a system of assessing the criticality of a vulnerability. This system offers an unbiased criticality score between 0 and 10 that customers can use to judge how critical a vulnerability is and plan accordingly. For more information, visit the CVSS website.
 
When calculating CVSS scores, we've adopted a philosophy that fosters consistency and repeatability. Our guiding principle for CVSS scoring is to score the exploit under consideration by itself. We consider only the immediate and direct impact of the exploit under consideration. We do not factor into a score any potential follow-on exploits that might be made possible by the successful exploitation of the issue being scored.
 
What are the CVSS scoring metrics?

CVE-2020-7308:  Transmission of data in clear text by ENS
 

Base Score	4.8
Attack Vector (AV)	Network (N)
Attack Complexity (AC)	High (H)
Privileges Required (PR)	None (N)
User Interaction (UI)	None (N)
Scope (S)	Unchanged (U)
Confidentiality (C)	Low (L)
Integrity (I)	Low (L)
Availability (A)	None (N)
Temporal Score (Overall)	4.3
Exploitability (E)	Proof-of-Concept (P)
Remediation Level (RL)	Official Fix (O)
Report Confidence (RC)	Confirmed (C)

 
NOTE: The below CVSS version 3.1 vector was used to generate this score.
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln-metrics/cvss/v3-calculator?vector=AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N/E:P/RL:O/RC:C&version=3.1

Where can I find a list of all Security Bulletins?
All Security Bulletins are published on our Knowledge Center. Security Bulletins are retired (removed) once a product is both End of Sale and End of Support (End of Life).
 
How do I report a product vulnerability to you?
If you have information about a security issue or vulnerability with a product, follow the instructions provided in KB95563 - Report a vulnerability.
 
How do you respond to this and any other reported security flaws?
Our key priority is the security of our customers. If a vulnerability is found within any of our software or services, we work closely with the relevant security software development team to ensure the rapid and effective development of a fix and communication plan.
 
We only publish Security Bulletins if they include something actionable such as a workaround, mitigation, version update, or hotfix. Otherwise, we would simply be informing the hacker community that our products are a target, putting our customers at greater risk. For products that are updated automatically, a non-actionable Security Bulletin might be published to acknowledge the discoverer.
 
To view our PSIRT policy, see KB95564 - About PSIRT.
Resources

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Disclaimer
The information provided in this Security Bulletin is provided as is without warranty of any kind. We disclaim all warranties, either express or implied, including the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall we or our suppliers be liable for any damages whatsoever including direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, loss of business profits, or special damages, even if we or our suppliers have been advised of the possibility of such damages. Some states don't allow the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, so the preceding limitation may not apply.

Any future product release dates mentioned in this Security Bulletin are intended to outline our general product direction, and they shouldn't be relied on in making a purchasing decision. The product release dates are for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. The product release dates aren't a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code, or functionality. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for our products remain at our sole discretion and may be changed or canceled at any time.