CVE-2006-6641 in Management Portal
Summary
by MITRE
Unspecified vulnerability in CA CleverPath Portal before maintenance version 4.71.001_179_060830, as used in multiple products including BrightStor Portal r11.1, CleverPath Aion BPM r10 through r10.2, eTrust Security Command Center r1 and r8, and Unicenter, does not properly handle when multiple Portal servers are started at the same time and share the same data store, which might cause a Portal user to inherit the session and credentials of a user who is on another Portal server.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/26/2017
This vulnerability exists within CA CleverPath Portal software versions prior to maintenance release 4.71.001_179_060830, affecting multiple enterprise security and management products including BrightStor Portal r11.1, CleverPath Aion BPM r10 through r10.2, eTrust Security Command Center r1 and r8, and Unicenter systems. The flaw manifests when multiple portal servers operate concurrently and share a common data store, creating a session management inconsistency that compromises user authentication integrity. This represents a critical security weakness that undermines the fundamental principle of user isolation and credential protection within multi-server portal deployments.
The technical root cause stems from inadequate session handling mechanisms when multiple portal servers operate in a shared data environment. When servers start simultaneously and access the same data store, the system fails to properly isolate user sessions and authentication contexts. This allows session information and credentials from one server to be inadvertently inherited by users accessing different servers within the same shared infrastructure, effectively creating a cross-server session hijacking scenario. The vulnerability operates at the application layer and specifically targets the session management and authentication components of the portal framework, making it particularly dangerous in enterprise environments where multiple servers are commonly deployed for scalability and redundancy.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe and multifaceted across enterprise security infrastructures. An attacker or malicious user could potentially gain unauthorized access to systems and data by exploiting the session inheritance mechanism, effectively impersonating legitimate users across different portal servers. This compromise extends beyond simple credential theft to include potential privilege escalation and unauthorized administrative access within the shared portal environment. The vulnerability particularly affects organizations using clustered or load-balanced portal deployments, where multiple servers share common data repositories, making it a significant concern for enterprise security operations that rely on distributed portal architectures.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including updating to the patched maintenance version 4.71.001_179_060830 or later, which addresses the session management flaw in the portal software. Additional protective measures include implementing strict network segmentation between portal servers, disabling unnecessary multi-server configurations where possible, and monitoring for unusual session activity patterns that might indicate credential inheritance events. Security teams should also consider implementing additional authentication layers such as two-factor authentication and regular session validation checks to detect and prevent unauthorized cross-server session access. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-284 Access Control Issues and represents a significant concern under ATT&CK technique T1566 credential access and T1078 valid accounts exploitation categories, emphasizing the critical need for proper session isolation in multi-server environments.