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CSA Error in compiled Winbatch Scripts


Question:

All the workstations in our company is protected by the Cisco Security Agent (CSA)application against malicious codes/applications.

When running a compiled Winbatch script, this CSA blocks the application from running and the system returns a "Batch Initialization Error, Error #998".

The CSA agent log entry for this error is "[Csamanager]: Event: The process 'F:\Apps\Tracker\FiservTracker.Exe' (as user D8NP0021\csr22) attempted to call the function LoadLibraryA("kernel32") from a buffer (the return address was 0x1c0d5c13). The code at this address is '0d1c8b1d c8570d1c e8820800 0050ff13 8d959efe ffff89c6 89c3b8be 580d1c8b' This either happens when a process uses self-modifying code or when a process has been subverted by a buffer overflow attack. The operation was denied."

This error happens to all compiled Winbatch scripts, unless an exception rule in CSA is made for that particular application.

Does anyone know of any fix to this problem?

Answer:

I suspect the Cisco Security Agent is being overly cautious and is misdiagnosing what is going on.

Years ago many of the anti-virus vendors had some issues with WinBatch, but it seems they refined their algorithms and now realize similar operations are not really an issue.

Apparently Cisco is not yet familiar with WinBatch.

WinBatch itself does not have self-modifying code and a buffer is not involved with the LoadLibraryA function at that point.

I would suspect you would have to contact Cisco about this and ask them.

Note: There is a chance that CSA is griping about activities that occur as a result of using compressed DLL and/or EXE files. NeoLite compression was removed from the compiled EXE files, but it was still present on the WIL run-time DLLs and extender DLLs for quite some period of time. The Neolite decompression code does do some stuff that may freak out some AV packages.

WinBatch 2005E Nolonger uses any compression. You might try updating to see if that resolves the issue.


Article ID:   W17039
File Created: 2007:07:03:14:27:48
Last Updated: 2007:07:03:14:27:48