CVE-2002-2356 in HAMweather
Summary
by MITRE
HAMweather 2.x allows remote attackers to modify administrative settings and obtain sensitive information via a direct request to hwadmin.cgi.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/20/2019
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2002-2356 affects HAMweather 2.x software, a web-based application designed for weather data management and display. This issue represents a critical security flaw that undermines the application's access control mechanisms and exposes sensitive administrative functionality to unauthorized users. The vulnerability specifically resides in the hwadmin.cgi component which serves as the administrative interface for the weather application. Remote attackers can exploit this weakness by directly accessing the hwadmin.cgi script without proper authentication, thereby gaining unauthorized access to administrative controls and sensitive system information.
The technical flaw manifests as a lack of proper authentication and authorization checks within the hwadmin.cgi script. When users make direct requests to this administrative endpoint, the application fails to verify user credentials or roles before executing administrative functions. This design oversight creates a path for malicious actors to bypass normal access controls and directly manipulate the application's configuration settings. The vulnerability essentially allows for privilege escalation from regular user access to full administrative privileges through simple HTTP requests. This weakness aligns with CWE-285, which addresses improper authorization in software systems, and represents a classic example of insufficient access control implementation. The vulnerability also maps to ATT&CK technique T1078 which covers legitimate credentials use for persistence and privilege escalation.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe and multifaceted. Remote attackers can modify critical administrative settings which may include user account management, system configuration parameters, data access controls, and other sensitive operational parameters. Beyond mere configuration changes, the vulnerability enables information disclosure, allowing unauthorized parties to access sensitive data that should only be available to system administrators. This could include user credentials, system logs, configuration files, and potentially sensitive weather data or operational information. The ability to modify administrative settings creates opportunities for attackers to establish persistent access, disrupt services, or exfiltrate data. Organizations using HAMweather 2.x may face significant security risks including unauthorized data manipulation, service disruption, and potential compliance violations due to the exposure of sensitive information.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability must address the core authentication and authorization failures within the application. The primary remediation involves implementing proper access control mechanisms that require valid authentication before allowing access to administrative functions. This includes adding session management, user authentication checks, and role-based access controls to the hwadmin.cgi script. Organizations should also consider implementing input validation and sanitization to prevent injection attacks that could compound the vulnerability. Network-level protections such as firewall rules and web application firewalls can provide additional layers of defense by restricting direct access to administrative endpoints. Regular security audits and penetration testing should be conducted to identify similar access control weaknesses in other components of the application. The vulnerability highlights the importance of following secure coding practices and implementing defense-in-depth strategies to protect administrative interfaces from unauthorized access. Updates and patches from the software vendor should be applied immediately to address this known vulnerability and prevent exploitation by threat actors.