CVE-2013-3499 in GroundWork Monitor
Summary
by MITRE
GroundWork Monitor Enterprise 6.7.0 performs authentication on the basis of the HTTP Referer header, which allows remote attackers to obtain administrative privileges or access files via a crafted header.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/13/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2013-3499 affects GroundWork Monitor Enterprise version 6.7.0 and represents a critical authentication bypass flaw that fundamentally undermines the security posture of the monitoring platform. This issue stems from the application's improper reliance on the HTTP Referer header for authentication decisions, a practice that violates established security principles and creates a significant attack surface. The vulnerability allows remote attackers to escalate privileges or gain unauthorized access to sensitive files by manipulating the Referer header value in their HTTP requests. This authentication mechanism weakness directly contravenes the principle of least privilege and demonstrates a failure in implementing robust authentication controls that should be independent of client-supplied headers.
The technical flaw manifests when the application accepts the Referer header as a legitimate authentication factor rather than treating it as an optional metadata field that cannot be trusted for security decisions. This design decision creates a dangerous dependency on a header that can be easily spoofed, modified, or omitted by attackers. The Referer header is inherently unreliable as a security control because it is generated by the client browser and can be manipulated without detection by the server. Attackers can craft malicious HTTP requests with carefully constructed Referer values that mimic legitimate authentication patterns, thereby bypassing the intended access controls. This vulnerability falls under the category of weak authentication mechanisms and represents a classic case of trusting unverified client data for security decisions.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends far beyond simple privilege escalation, as it enables attackers to achieve administrative control over the GroundWork Monitor Enterprise system. Once authenticated with elevated privileges, attackers can access sensitive monitoring data, modify system configurations, view confidential reports, and potentially disrupt critical infrastructure monitoring functions. The ability to access files through this vector suggests that the vulnerability may also enable data exfiltration capabilities, allowing attackers to extract sensitive operational information that could be used for further attacks or to compromise other systems within the monitored environment. This compromise of administrative access represents a severe risk to operational continuity and data security, particularly in enterprise environments where monitoring systems serve as critical infrastructure components.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-287 which addresses improper authentication issues in software systems, specifically highlighting the problem of relying on untrusted input for authentication decisions. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to privilege escalation techniques and initial access methods that leverage weak authentication controls. The attack vector demonstrates characteristics of the T1078 technique for valid accounts and T1566 for social engineering, as attackers can exploit the flawed authentication to gain unauthorized access to administrative functions. Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including disabling the reliance on Referer headers for authentication, implementing proper session management controls, and enforcing multi-factor authentication mechanisms. Additionally, security teams must conduct thorough code reviews to identify similar authentication bypass vulnerabilities and ensure that all authentication decisions are based on verified credentials rather than optional HTTP headers. The remediation process should include comprehensive testing to validate that the authentication system properly validates user credentials through established secure channels and does not depend on potentially manipulable client-supplied data.