CVE-2018-16879

Description

Tower does not set a secure channel as it is using the default insecure configuration channel settings for messaging celery workers from RabbitMQ. This could lead in data leak of sensitive information such as passwords as well as denial of service attacks by deleting projects or inventory files.

Statement

Red Hat CloudForms versions 4.5 and 4.6 ship an ansible-tower which correctly sets the security channel by default. Red Hat CloudForms version 4.7 ships ansible-tower 3.3.3 which already contains the fix.

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 Score7.39.8N/A
Attack VectorAdjacent NetworkNetworkN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredLowNoneN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityNoneHighN/A
Integrity ImpactHighHighN/A
Availability ImpactHighHighN/A

Vector

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

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Confidentiality

Technical Impact: Read Application Data

If the application does not use a secure channel, such as SSL, to exchange sensitive information, it is possible for an attacker with access to the network traffic to sniff packets from the connection and uncover the data. This attack is not technically difficult, but does require physical access to some portion of the network over which the sensitive data travels. This access is usually somewhere near where the user is connected to the network (such as a colleague on the company network) but can be anywhere along the path from the user to the end server.

Confidentiality,Integrity

Technical Impact: Modify Application Data

Omitting the use of encryption in any program which transfers data over a network of any kind should be considered on par with delivering the data sent to each user on the local networks of both the sender and receiver. Worse, this omission allows for the injection of data into a stream of communication between two parties -- with no means for the victims to separate valid data from invalid. In this day of widespread network attacks and password collection sniffers, it is an unnecessary risk to omit encryption from the design of any system which might benefit from it.

Frequently Asked Questions

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