CVE-2014-3012 in Curam Social Program Management
Summary
by MITRE
Multiple CRLF injection vulnerabilities in IBM Curam Social Program Management 5.2 SP1 through 6.0.5.4 allow remote authenticated users to inject arbitrary HTTP headers and conduct HTTP response splitting attacks via unspecified parameters to custom JSPs.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/06/2018
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2014-3012 represents a critical security flaw within IBM Curam Social Program Management versions 5.2 SP1 through 6.0.5.4 that exposes the system to cross-site scripting and response splitting attacks. This vulnerability specifically targets the handling of user input within custom java server pages that process http requests, creating opportunities for malicious actors to manipulate the http response headers. The flaw enables authenticated attackers to inject malicious content into http headers through unspecified parameters that are processed by these custom jsp components, fundamentally compromising the integrity of the http communication channel.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation and sanitization within the application's http response handling mechanisms. When user-supplied data is processed through custom jsp pages without proper sanitization, the system fails to properly escape or filter special characters that could be interpreted as http header delimiters. This creates a condition where attackers can inject carriage return line feed sequences that break out of the intended http response body and inject malicious headers. The vulnerability specifically affects the http response splitting attack vector, where an attacker can inject multiple http responses that appear as a single response to the client, potentially enabling session hijacking, cache poisoning, or cross-site scripting attacks.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data injection, as it provides attackers with the capability to manipulate http responses in ways that can compromise entire user sessions and data integrity. An authenticated attacker with access to the application can leverage this vulnerability to inject malicious http headers that redirect users to phishing sites, inject malicious javascript content, or manipulate cache behavior to deliver compromised content to other users. The attack surface is particularly concerning because it requires only authenticated access, meaning that insiders or compromised accounts could exploit this vulnerability to conduct sophisticated attacks against the application's user base. This vulnerability directly maps to CWE-113, which describes improper neutralization of input during web output, and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1566 for credential harvesting through phishing attacks that could be facilitated by this header injection capability.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2014-3012 should focus on comprehensive input validation and sanitization across all user-facing parameters within custom jsp components. Organizations should implement strict header validation that filters out or escapes carriage return and line feed characters from user input before processing. The recommended approach includes deploying web application firewalls that can detect and block suspicious header injection patterns, implementing proper output encoding for all http responses, and ensuring that custom jsp pages properly sanitize all parameters before incorporating them into http headers. Additionally, application developers should adopt secure coding practices that prevent direct user input from being used in http response headers without proper validation and sanitization. The most effective long-term solution involves upgrading to patched versions of IBM Curam Social Program Management that address this vulnerability through proper input handling and header validation mechanisms, while also implementing monitoring solutions that can detect anomalous header injection patterns in real-time.