Seagate has released firmware updates to address several vulnerabilities affecting the company’s wireless storage devices.
The flaws, reported by researchers at Virginia-based security solutions provider Tangible Security, can be exploited by remote, unauthenticated attackers to access arbitrary files on the hard drive and gain root access to the device. The issues affect Seagate Wireless Mobile Storage, Seagate Wireless Plus Mobile Storage, and LaCie FUEL, which are products designed for personal use.
The security holes have been confirmed to exist in versions 2.2.0.005 and 2.3.0.014 of the firmware (released in October 2014), but other versions may be impacted as well. Seagate patched the vulnerabilities with the release of version 3.4.1.105 of the firmware, CERT said in an advisory published this week.
Tangible Security’s Allen Harper, one of the experts involved in the analysis of Seagate hard drives, confirmed for SecurityWeek that the updates released by Seagate patch the vulnerabilities.
Tangible Security said the vulnerabilities were reported to Seagate on March 18 and they were confirmed by the vendor on March 30. The patches were tested and confirmed by the security firm on July 8.
According to the advisory published by CERT, a total of three vulnerabilities have been identified in Seagate’s wireless hard drives. One of them involves the use of hardcoded credentials — the default username and password is “root” — that can be utilized to access undocumented Telnet services (CVE-2015-2874).
Another flaw is a direct request issue (CVE-2015-2875) that could allow anonymous attackers with wireless access to the storage unit to download files from anywhere on the file system. The vulnerability is related to the device’s unrestricted file download feature provided in default configurations.
The last security bug can be exploited by attackers to wirelessly upload potentially malicious files to the device’s /media/sda2 filesystem, which is reserved for file sharing (CVE-2015-2876).
“Seagate was made aware of vulnerabilities in its consumer based wireless hard drives. Seagate has patched the vulnerabilities and issued a firmware update that is available to customers on Seagate.com and through a link on the CERT notification. The firmware update addresses all security concerns with these vulnerabilities,” Seagate told SecurityWeek.
“Affected users are encouraged to update the firmware as soon as possible. Customers may download the firmware from Seagate’s website,” the company added. “Seagate encourages any customer encountering issues to contact customer service at 1-800-Seagate.”
*Updated with statement from Seagate