CVE-2008-0178 in Enterprise Portal
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Enterprise Admin Session Monitoring component in Liferay Portal 4.3.6 allows remote authenticated users to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via the User-Agent HTTP header.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/03/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2008-0178 represents a critical cross-site scripting flaw within the Enterprise Admin Session Monitoring component of Liferay Portal version 4.3.6. This security weakness resides in how the application processes the User-Agent HTTP header, which is typically used by web browsers to identify themselves to servers. The flaw allows authenticated attackers to inject malicious scripts into the application's session monitoring functionality, potentially compromising the security of administrative sessions and user data within the portal environment.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and output encoding within the Enterprise Admin Session Monitoring module. When the system processes the User-Agent header from authenticated users, it fails to properly sanitize or escape special characters that could be interpreted as executable script code. This inadequate sanitization creates an opportunity for attackers to embed malicious JavaScript or HTML content within the header, which then gets rendered in the administrative interface without proper security filtering. The vulnerability specifically affects the session monitoring component, meaning that any authenticated user with sufficient privileges can potentially exploit this flaw to execute arbitrary code in the context of other users' sessions.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple script injection, as it can enable attackers to perform session hijacking, escalate privileges, or gain unauthorized access to sensitive administrative functions. Since the vulnerability affects the Enterprise Admin Session Monitoring component, successful exploitation could allow attackers to monitor or manipulate administrative sessions, potentially leading to complete system compromise. The authenticated nature of the attack means that only users who have already gained access to the system can exploit this vulnerability, but this still represents a significant security risk as it can be used to escalate privileges or maintain persistent access. The User-Agent header is commonly used in web applications for various purposes including user identification, browser detection, and security monitoring, making this a particularly insidious vulnerability that can be exploited in multiple attack scenarios.
Organizations running Liferay Portal 4.3.6 should immediately implement mitigations including input validation and output encoding for all HTTP headers, particularly the User-Agent field. The recommended approach involves implementing proper sanitization routines that escape or remove potentially dangerous characters from user-supplied input before processing. Additionally, organizations should consider implementing Content Security Policy (CSP) headers to prevent execution of unauthorized scripts, and regular security audits should be conducted to identify similar vulnerabilities in other components. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-79, which describes Cross-site Scripting flaws, and represents a classic example of how insufficient input validation can lead to severe security consequences. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to T1566, the technique for phishing attacks through malicious links or scripts, and could be leveraged by threat actors to establish persistent access to administrative interfaces. The vulnerability also demonstrates the importance of secure coding practices and input validation, as it highlights how seemingly benign header information can become a vector for sophisticated attacks when proper security controls are not implemented.