CVE-2010-3989 in Insight Control Virtual Machine Management
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in HP Insight Control Virtual Machine Management before 6.2 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified victims via unknown vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/03/2018
The CVE-2010-3989 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw discovered in HP Insight Control Virtual Machine Management software prior to version 6.2. This vulnerability resides within the authentication mechanisms of the web-based management interface, creating a significant security risk for organizations relying on HP's virtualization management solutions. The flaw enables remote attackers to exploit the system's trust relationship with authenticated users, potentially allowing unauthorized actions to be performed on behalf of legitimate users without their knowledge or consent.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from insufficient validation of request origins and lack of proper anti-CSRF token mechanisms within the web application framework. Attackers can craft malicious web pages or emails containing specially crafted requests that, when visited by an authenticated user, automatically submit commands to the vulnerable HP Insight Control system. These requests leverage the user's existing session cookies and authentication state to execute unauthorized operations, effectively bypassing the normal authentication flow. The vulnerability's classification as a CSRF weakness aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses cross-site request forgery vulnerabilities in web applications.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple privilege escalation, as it can enable attackers to perform critical administrative functions within the virtual machine management environment. An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability could potentially modify virtual machine configurations, create or delete virtual machines, alter network settings, or access sensitive data within the managed virtual environment. The unspecified nature of victim targets suggests that any authenticated user session within the system could be compromised, making this vulnerability particularly dangerous in enterprise environments where multiple administrators and users maintain access to virtual infrastructure. This type of attack vector is commonly categorized under the ATT&CK framework as T1566, representing the initial access phase through social engineering or malicious web content.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should immediately implement comprehensive mitigation strategies including upgrading to HP Insight Control Virtual Machine Management version 6.2 or later, which contains the necessary security patches. Additional protective measures include implementing proper CSRF token validation mechanisms, enforcing strict referer header checking, and configuring web application firewalls to monitor for suspicious request patterns. Network segmentation and user access control measures should also be strengthened to limit the potential damage from successful exploitation attempts. The vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of maintaining up-to-date security patches in enterprise management systems, particularly those handling sensitive virtual infrastructure data and operations.