CVE-2012-4847 in Cognos Business Intelligence
Summary
by MITRE
IBM Cognos Business Intelligence (BI) 8.4 and 8.4.1 allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service (CPU consumption) via a crafted request containing a zero-valued byte.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/05/2018
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2012-4847 affects IBM Cognos Business Intelligence versions 8.4 and 8.4.1, representing a significant security flaw that can be exploited by remote authenticated attackers to execute denial of service attacks. This vulnerability specifically targets the application's handling of crafted requests containing zero-valued bytes, which can lead to excessive cpu consumption and system instability. The issue stems from insufficient input validation mechanisms within the IBM Cognos BI platform, particularly in how it processes incoming requests that contain malformed data structures.
The technical flaw manifests when the system receives a specially crafted request with a zero-valued byte embedded within the data payload. This particular byte sequence triggers a processing loop or recursive function call within the application's request handling mechanism, causing the cpu utilization to spike dramatically. The vulnerability operates at the application layer and requires authentication to exploit, meaning that an attacker must first establish valid credentials to access the system before they can initiate the denial of service attack. This authentication requirement reduces the attack surface but does not eliminate the risk entirely, as compromised accounts or weak authentication mechanisms can still be leveraged for exploitation.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption, as sustained cpu consumption can lead to complete system unavailability and affect business operations critical to enterprise environments. Organizations utilizing IBM Cognos BI for reporting, analytics, and business intelligence functions face potential downtime that can compromise decision-making processes and operational efficiency. The vulnerability affects the core functionality of the business intelligence platform, potentially causing cascading effects throughout the enterprise's data analysis capabilities and reporting systems. System administrators may experience difficulty in identifying the root cause of performance degradation, as the symptoms manifest as normal cpu usage patterns rather than obvious error conditions.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2012-4847 should focus on implementing proper input validation and sanitization mechanisms within the IBM Cognos BI environment. Organizations should prioritize applying the official IBM security patches and updates released to address this specific vulnerability. Network segmentation and access controls can help limit the potential impact by restricting unauthorized access to the affected systems. Additionally, implementing monitoring solutions that can detect unusual cpu consumption patterns and automated response mechanisms can help identify and contain exploitation attempts. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-129, which addresses issues related to insufficient input validation, and falls under ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for network denial of service attacks. Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should be conducted to identify similar weaknesses in the broader application ecosystem, as this type of input validation flaw often indicates broader architectural issues that may affect other components of the enterprise infrastructure.