SANS ISC: Sonicwall License Manager Failure

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SANS ISC InfoSec Forums

Details are still sketchy as to the cause of a failure overnight of the Sonicwall License Manager Server.  We are receiving reports from Sonicwall users that the server "reset" (meaning invalidated) the licenses on all of their email security products. The customers are reporting that this is causing them to be unable to login to their own systems.  It is reported that the support calls are not being answered and are going straight to voicemail. 

It appears that Sonic Wall users received an email overnight indicating that the Email Security licenses have been reset and says that the filtering will not be working.  The email recommended that the customer contact Tech Support (which could be why the calls are going straight to voicemail).

One of our readers who is also a Sonic Wall customer sent us this information from correspondence with Sonic Wall : "The issue is on our backend server who stores the registrations, some ES appliances got licences resetted. The exact cause is still being analized with high priority. In those cases entering the mysonicwall credentials or uploading file solve the issue. Kind Regards Ivan"

So if you are a Sonic Wall customer and you haven't discovered it yet, you may very well have reduced protection. If the firewalls cannot login and verify licensing, the subscription services (content filtering, intrusion prevention, gateway AV) stop working.

Derek, one of our readers and a Sonic Wall customer using the Sonic Wall content filtering has verified that he is now able to access sites that should be getting blocked. Which means schools, businesses, etc that are counting on Sonic Wall to filter for them are sorely disappointed today.

We will update you if anything else pops up on this.