CVE-2011-1397 in Maximo Asset Management
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Labor Reporting page in IBM Maximo Asset Management and Asset Management Essentials 6.2, 7.1, and 7.5; IBM Tivoli Asset Management for IT 6.2, 7.1, and 7.2; IBM Tivoli Service Request Manager 7.1 and 7.2; IBM Maximo Service Desk 6.2; and IBM Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database (CCMDB) 6.2, 7.1, and 7.2 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/30/2021
The CVE-2011-1397 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw affecting multiple IBM enterprise asset management and service management products. This vulnerability exists within the Labor Reporting page functionality across various IBM Maximo and Tivoli products spanning versions 6.2 through 7.5. The flaw enables remote attackers to exploit the authentication mechanism by crafting malicious requests that appear to originate from legitimate authenticated users, thereby bypassing normal security controls. This type of vulnerability falls under CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery conditions in web applications where the application fails to properly validate the source of requests.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from the absence of proper anti-CSRF token validation mechanisms within the Labor Reporting page functionality. When authenticated users navigate to the affected pages, the system should validate that requests originate from legitimate sources and contain appropriate tokens to prevent unauthorized actions. However, the flaw allows attackers to construct malicious web pages or send crafted HTTP requests that leverage the victim's existing authenticated session. The vulnerability specifically targets the authentication context where users are already logged into the system, making it particularly dangerous as it operates within the trust boundary of legitimate user sessions. Attackers can exploit this by tricking users into clicking malicious links or visiting compromised websites that automatically submit requests to the vulnerable IBM products.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data theft or manipulation, as it can enable complete account takeover scenarios and unauthorized administrative actions. An attacker who successfully exploits this CSRF vulnerability can perform actions such as creating new user accounts, modifying existing records, changing passwords, or executing administrative functions within the affected systems. This poses significant risks to enterprise environments where these products are used for critical asset management, service desk operations, and change management processes. The vulnerability particularly affects organizations that rely heavily on these platforms for business-critical operations, as unauthorized modifications could disrupt asset tracking, service requests, or configuration management processes. According to ATT&CK framework category T1531, this vulnerability aligns with techniques involving account manipulation and session hijacking, while also mapping to T1078 which covers valid accounts and legitimate credentials exploitation.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should implement immediate mitigations including the deployment of anti-CSRF tokens across all web forms and pages within the affected IBM products. The most effective remediation involves ensuring that every state-changing request requires a unique, unpredictable token that is validated server-side before processing. Additionally, implementing proper SameSite cookie attributes and referrer header validation can provide additional layers of protection. Organizations should also consider implementing web application firewalls that can detect and block suspicious cross-site request patterns. The vulnerability demonstrates the importance of proper session management and input validation as outlined in OWASP Top Ten categories A07:2021 and A01:2021, emphasizing that applications must validate the origin and integrity of all requests. Regular security assessments and penetration testing should be conducted to identify similar vulnerabilities in other web applications and ensure that authentication mechanisms remain robust against evolving attack vectors.