CVE-2010-1329 in SecureSphere Web Application Firewall
Summary
by MITRE
Imperva SecureSphere Web Application Firewall and Database Firewall 5.0.0.5082 through 7.0.0.7078 allow remote attackers to bypass intrusion-prevention functionality via a request that has an appended long string containing an unspecified manipulation.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/29/2017
The vulnerability described in CVE-2010-1329 represents a critical security flaw in Imperva SecureSphere Web Application Firewall and Database Firewall products. This issue affects versions ranging from 5.0.0.5082 through 7.0.0.7078, creating a significant risk for organizations relying on these security solutions for protecting their web applications and databases. The vulnerability stems from an insufficient validation mechanism that fails to properly handle malformed or extended input requests, allowing attackers to craft specific payloads that can circumvent the intrusion prevention capabilities of the firewall system.
The technical nature of this vulnerability involves a manipulation technique where attackers append unusually long strings to HTTP requests, exploiting a gap in the firewall's parsing or validation logic. This type of attack demonstrates a classic buffer overflow or input validation weakness that has been classified under CWE-129, which deals with insufficient validation of length of inputs. The flaw essentially allows an attacker to manipulate the request structure in such a way that the firewall's intrusion prevention engine fails to properly inspect or block the malicious content. This manipulation technique can be categorized as a request smuggling or request forgery attack pattern that leverages the firewall's incomplete input sanitization process.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is substantial as it directly undermines the fundamental purpose of the SecureSphere firewall, which is to prevent unauthorized access and malicious activities targeting web applications and databases. When an attacker successfully bypasses the intrusion prevention functionality, they gain the ability to execute attacks such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, or other web application exploits that would normally be detected and blocked by the firewall. This creates a false sense of security for organizations relying on the system, as the firewall appears to be functioning normally while simultaneously failing to protect against threats that are being passed through the system. The vulnerability can be mapped to ATT&CK technique T1071.004, which covers application layer protocol manipulation, and represents a critical failure in network traffic inspection and filtering capabilities.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should immediately implement multiple layers of mitigation strategies to protect their systems. The primary recommendation involves applying the vendor-provided patches or updates that address the specific input validation flaw in the SecureSphere firewall software. Additionally, network administrators should consider implementing additional monitoring and anomaly detection mechanisms to identify unusual request patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. The mitigation approach should also include regular security assessments of the firewall configuration to ensure that all security policies are properly enforced and that no bypasses exist in the system's rule sets. Organizations should also consider implementing network segmentation and additional security controls such as web application firewalls at different layers of their infrastructure to provide defense in depth against similar vulnerabilities that may not be fully addressed by the primary firewall solution.