CVE-2014-4760 in WebSphere Portal
Summary
by MITRE
Open redirect vulnerability in IBM WebSphere Portal 6.1.0.0 through 6.1.0.6 CF27, 6.1.5.0 through 6.1.5.3 CF27, 7.0.0 through 7.0.0.2 CF28, 8.0.0 before 8.0.0.1 CF13, and 8.5.0 before CF01 allows remote attackers to redirect users to arbitrary web sites and conduct phishing attacks via a crafted URL.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/10/2022
The CVE-2014-4760 vulnerability represents a critical open redirect flaw within IBM WebSphere Portal software across multiple version ranges, including 6.1.0.0 through 6.1.0.6 CF27, 6.1.5.0 through 6.1.5.3 CF27, 7.0.0 through 7.0.0.2 CF28, 8.0.0 before 8.0.0.1 CF13, and 8.5.0 before CF01. This vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation and sanitization within the portal's URL handling mechanisms, allowing malicious actors to craft specially formatted URLs that bypass normal redirection security controls. The flaw specifically affects the portal's authentication and navigation components where user-provided URLs are processed without proper validation of their destination targets.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability exploits the lack of proper URL validation routines that should normally verify whether a redirect target is within the trusted domain or explicitly authorized. Attackers can construct malicious URLs containing encoded or specially formatted parameters that trick the portal into redirecting users to attacker-controlled domains. This occurs because the WebSphere Portal application fails to properly validate the scheme, host, or path components of redirect URLs, allowing attackers to inject external domains into the redirection process. The vulnerability is categorized under CWE-601 as an Open Redirect vulnerability, which represents a well-known weakness in web application security where applications fail to validate redirect destinations.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe and multifaceted, particularly in enterprise environments where WebSphere Portal serves as a central authentication and content management platform. Remote attackers can leverage this flaw to conduct sophisticated phishing campaigns by redirecting authenticated users to malicious domains that appear legitimate within the portal context. This creates significant risk for credential theft, as users may be unknowingly redirected to fake login pages designed to capture authentication information. The vulnerability also enables social engineering attacks where attackers can make users believe they are navigating to trusted internal resources while actually being directed to external malicious sites.
Organizations utilizing affected WebSphere Portal versions face substantial security risks including potential data breaches, unauthorized access to sensitive corporate information, and compromise of user credentials. The vulnerability's impact extends beyond simple phishing attacks as it can be combined with other exploitation techniques to create more sophisticated attack vectors. Security professionals should note that this vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1566.001 for Phishing and T1071.004 for Application Layer Protocol: DNS, as attackers can leverage the redirect functionality to establish malicious communication channels. The vulnerability's persistence across multiple major releases indicates a fundamental flaw in the portal's security architecture that requires immediate remediation.
The recommended mitigation strategies include applying the relevant IBM security patches and fixes released for each affected version, implementing strict URL validation policies within the portal configuration, and deploying additional network-level controls to monitor and restrict external redirect behavior. Organizations should also consider implementing web application firewalls with URL filtering capabilities and establish monitoring procedures to detect anomalous redirect patterns. Additionally, security awareness training for administrators and end users can help reduce the effectiveness of phishing attacks that leverage this vulnerability. The fix typically involves modifying the portal's redirect validation logic to ensure that all redirect destinations are properly validated against a whitelist of trusted domains or explicitly authorized paths, thereby preventing unauthorized redirection to external malicious sites.