CVE-2016-8648

Description

It was found that the Karaf container used by Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6.x, and Red Hat JBoss A-MQ 6.x, deserializes objects passed to MBeans via JMX operations. An attacker could use this flaw to execute remote code on the server as the user running the Java Virtual Machine if the target MBean contain deserialization gadgets in its classpath.

Mitigation

In order to exploit this issue you need to have credentials of a user with the 'admin' role. Therefore a good mitigation against this attack is to set a strong password for any user with the 'admin' role in the 'etc/users.properties' file of the Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6, or Red Hat JBoss AM-Q 6.

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).

The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score7.27.27.2
Attack VectorNetworkNetworkNetwork
Attack ComplexityLowLowLow
Privileges RequiredHighHighHigh
User InteractionNoneNoneNone
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedUnchanged
ConfidentialityHighHighHigh
Integrity ImpactHighHighHigh
Availability ImpactHighHighHigh

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

cve.org: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Integrity

Technical Impact: Modify Application Data; Unexpected State

Attackers can modify unexpected objects or data that was assumed to be safe from modification. Deserialized data or code could be modified without using the provided accessor functions, or unexpected functions could be invoked.

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU)

If a function is making an assumption on when to terminate, based on a sentry in a string, it could easily never terminate.

Other

Technical Impact: Varies by Context

The consequences can vary widely, because it depends on which objects or methods are being deserialized, and how they are used. Making an assumption that the code in the deserialized object is valid is dangerous and can enable exploitation. One example is attackers using gadget chains to perform unauthorized actions, such as generating a shell.

Acknowledgements

This issue was discovered by Jason Shepherd (Red Hat).

Frequently Asked Questions

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