CVE-2005-2188
Description
McAfee IntruShield Security Management System exposes the Manager account via the URL, enabling remote brute-force attacks to guess credentials and gain elevated privileges.
AI Insight
LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.
McAfee IntruShield Security Management System exposes the Manager account via the URL, enabling remote brute-force attacks to guess credentials and gain elevated privileges.
Vulnerability
The McAfee IntruShield Security Management System (ISM) obtains the user ID directly from the URL during the login or session management process. This design flaw allows an attacker to enumerate valid user identifiers, particularly the privileged "Manager" account. The system does not implement sufficient obfuscation or randomization of identifiers, making brute-force enumeration feasible. The vulnerability is present in versions available before the July 2005 timeframe [1].
Exploitation
An attacker can perform a remote brute-force attack by iterating through sequential or predictable user IDs in the URL. No authentication is required to initiate the enumeration, and the attacker does not need any special network position beyond standard web access to the ISM console. By observing differences in server responses (e.g., error messages, response times, or redirects), the attacker can identify the Manager account ID. Once the correct ID is determined, the attacker can possibly guess or brute-force the corresponding password to gain unauthorized access [1].
Impact
Successful exploitation allows an attacker to elevate privileges from a low-privileged view-only user (or from no account at all) to the Manager account level. The Manager account has full administrative control over the IntruShield Security Management System, including the ability to modify security policies, view all alerts, and potentially compromise the entire IPS deployment. The impact is primarily loss of confidentiality (access to sensitive alerts and configurations) and integrity (ability to alter policies) [1].
Mitigation
McAfee reportedly notified the researcher that a fix would be included in the June 2005 Maintenance Patch [2]. Administrators should apply the latest vendor patches to resolve the ID exposure issue. If patching is not possible, restrict network access to the ISM console to trusted administrative hosts and enforce strong password policies for all accounts, especially the Manager account. No workaround is explicitly provided in the available references [1][2].
AI Insight generated on May 24, 2026. Synthesized from this CVE's description and the cited reference URLs; citations are validated against the source bundle.
Affected products
2cpe:2.3:h:mcafee:intrushield_security_management_system:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*+ 1 more
- cpe:2.3:h:mcafee:intrushield_security_management_system:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
- (no CPE)
Patches
0No patches discovered yet.
Vulnerability mechanics
Root cause
"The user ID is passed in the URL in cleartext, allowing an attacker to brute-force valid Manager account IDs by iterating the userId parameter."
Attack vector
An attacker sends HTTP requests to the IntruShield Management System with sequential userId values in the URL (e.g., userId=1, userId=2, userId=3) until a privileged Manager account is discovered [ref_id=1]. Because the user ID is transmitted in the clear as a URL parameter, no authentication token or session check protects the enumeration. Once a valid Manager userId is found, the attacker can access the Management Console and perform privileged actions [ref_id=1].
Affected code
The advisory identifies the URL path `/intruvert/jsp/menu/disp.jsp` as the endpoint that accepts a `userId` parameter in the query string [ref_id=1]. No source code or patch files are provided in the bundle, so the exact server-side logic is not shown.
What the fix does
The advisory states that a new version was released to address these bugs and can be downloaded from the vendor's site [ref_id=1]. No patch diff is available in the bundle, so the exact code changes are unknown. The fix would need to stop passing user IDs in the URL and instead use a server-side session mechanism that authenticates the user before granting access to privileged functions.
Preconditions
- networkAttacker must have network access to the IntruShield Security Management System web interface
- authNo authentication or rate-limiting protects the userId parameter from brute-force enumeration
Reproduction
Send sequential HTTPS requests to the Management Console varying the userId parameter:
``` https://intrushield:443/intruvert/jsp/menu/disp.jsp?userId=1&logo=intruvert.gif https://intrushield:443/intruvert/jsp/menu/disp.jsp?userId=2&logo=intruvert.gif https://intrushield:443/intruvert/jsp/menu/disp.jsp?userId=3&logo=intruvert.gif ```
Continue until a response indicates a valid Manager account has been found [ref_id=1].
Generated on May 26, 2026. Inputs: CWE entries + fix-commit diffs from this CVE's patches. Citations validated against bundle.
References
3News mentions
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