CVE-2009-0055 in IronPort Encryption Appliance
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the administration interface in Cisco IronPort Encryption Appliance 6.2.4 before 6.2.4.1.1, 6.2.5, 6.2.6, 6.2.7 before 6.2.7.7, 6.3 before 6.3.0.4, and 6.5 before 6.5.0.2; and Cisco IronPort PostX 6.2.1 before 6.2.1.1 and 6.2.2 before 6.2.2.3; allows remote attackers to modify appliance preferences as arbitrary users via unspecified vectors.
If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/24/2019
The Cisco IronPort Encryption Appliance and PostX products contain a critical cross-site request forgery vulnerability that affects multiple versions of the software. This vulnerability exists within the administration interface of these security appliances, creating a significant risk for organizations relying on these systems for email encryption and security management. The flaw allows remote attackers to manipulate appliance preferences without proper authentication, potentially enabling unauthorized modifications to critical security configurations. The vulnerability impacts versions 6.2.4 through 6.2.7.6, 6.3.0.3 and earlier, 6.5.0.1 and earlier, as well as specific versions of the PostX product line. This CSRF weakness represents a fundamental failure in the authentication and authorization mechanisms of the affected systems, creating an attack surface that could compromise the entire email security infrastructure.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from the absence of proper anti-CSRF protection mechanisms in the administrative web interface. Attackers can exploit this by crafting malicious web pages or email content that, when viewed by an authenticated administrator, automatically submits requests to the appliance's administration interface. The unspecified vectors suggest that the attack could be delivered through various methods including web-based exploitation or potentially through email content that triggers the CSRF attack when processed by the appliance. This flaw directly maps to CWE-352, which specifically addresses cross-site request forgery vulnerabilities, and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1566.002 for initial access through spearphishing with a link. The vulnerability's nature indicates that the system fails to validate the origin of requests, allowing attackers to leverage the trust relationship between the user's browser and the appliance.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple configuration changes, as it provides attackers with the ability to modify critical appliance preferences that could significantly weaken the email security posture. An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability could alter encryption settings, modify security policies, change user access controls, or disable critical security features within the appliance. This capability represents a severe compromise of the appliance's integrity and confidentiality, potentially allowing attackers to bypass encryption controls or redirect email traffic through compromised channels. The risk is particularly elevated because the appliance serves as a central security control for email encryption, and unauthorized modifications could result in complete compromise of encrypted email communications. Organizations using these appliances may experience unauthorized data access, potential data exfiltration, and complete loss of email security protection.
Organizations should immediately implement mitigation strategies including updating to the patched versions of the affected software releases, which are available through Cisco's security advisories. The patching process should prioritize the most critical versions and ensure complete deployment across all affected appliances within the network infrastructure. Network segmentation and access controls should be strengthened to limit access to the administrative interfaces, implementing multi-factor authentication and restricting administrative access to trusted networks only. Monitoring and logging should be enhanced to detect suspicious administrative activities, particularly around preference changes and configuration modifications. Security teams should also implement web application firewalls and content filtering solutions to detect and block potential CSRF attack vectors. Additionally, regular security assessments should be conducted to verify that the patched systems maintain proper CSRF protection mechanisms and that no other vulnerabilities exist within the appliance's administrative interface. The remediation process should include comprehensive testing to ensure that the patches do not introduce compatibility issues with existing email security policies and encryption configurations.