CVE-2014-0096

Description

It was found that the org.apache.catalina.servlets.DefaultServlet implementation in JBoss Web / Apache Tomcat allowed the definition of XML External Entities (XXEs) in provided XSLTs. A malicious application could use this to circumvent intended security restrictions to disclose sensitive information.

Statement

This issue does affect JBossWeb as shipped in Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5. Red Hat Product Security has rated this issue as having Low security impact. Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 is currently in reduced support phase (Phase 2: Maintenance Support), receiving only Critical and Important security updates, hence this issue is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates for Red Hat Enterprise Application Platform 5. For additional information, refer to the Red Hat JBoss Middleware and Red Hat JBoss Operations Network Product Update and Support Policy: https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/jboss_notes/ and the Issue Severity Classification: https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v2 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score2.14.3N/A
Attack VectorNetworkNetworkN/A
Access ComplexityHighMediumN/A
AuthenticationSingleNoneN/A
Confidentiality ImpactPartialPartialN/A
Integrity ImpactNoneNoneN/A
Availability ImpactNoneNoneN/A

Vector

Red Hat: AV:N/AC:H/Au:S/C:P/I:N/A:N

NVD: AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Confidentiality

Technical Impact: Read Application Data; Read Files or Directories

If the attacker is able to include a crafted DTD and a default entity resolver is enabled, the attacker may be able to access arbitrary files on the system. By submitting an XML file that defines an external entity with a file:// URI, an attacker can cause the processing application to read the contents of a local file. For example, a URI such as "file:///c:/winnt/win.ini" designates (in Windows) the file C:\Winnt\win.ini, or file:///etc/passwd designates the password file in Unix-based systems. Once the content of the URI is read, it is fed back into the application that is processing the XML. This application may echo back the data (e.g., in an error message), thereby exposing the file contents.

Integrity

Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism

An attacker may supply a crafted DTD using URIs with schemes such as http://, forcing the application to make outgoing HTTP requests to servers that the attacker cannot reach directly, which can be used to bypass firewall restrictions; hide the source of attacks such as port scanning; or otherwise leverage the server's trust relationship with other entities.

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory)

The product could consume excessive CPU cycles or memory using a URI that points to a large file, or a device that always returns data such as /dev/random. Alternately, the URI could reference a file that contains many nested or recursive entity references to further slow down parsing.

Frequently Asked Questions

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