CVE-2014-5577 in Avon Buy
Summary
by MITRE
The AVON Buy & Sell (aka com.AVONBeautyntheRep) application 0.3 for Android does not verify X.509 certificates from SSL servers, which allows man-in-the-middle attackers to spoof servers and obtain sensitive information via a crafted certificate.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/25/2024
The vulnerability described in CVE-2014-5577 represents a critical security flaw in the AVON Buy & Sell Android application version 0.3 that fundamentally undermines the integrity of secure communications between the mobile client and remote servers. This issue falls under the category of improper certificate validation, which is a well-documented weakness in cryptographic implementations that can lead to severe security implications for both users and organizations. The application's failure to properly verify X.509 certificates from SSL servers creates an exploitable condition that directly violates established security protocols and best practices for mobile application development.
The technical flaw manifests as a complete absence of certificate chain validation within the application's SSL implementation, allowing attackers to perform man-in-the-middle attacks by presenting fraudulent certificates that appear legitimate to the vulnerable client. This vulnerability stems from the application's reliance on default SSL/TLS configurations that disable certificate verification or implement insufficient validation mechanisms. According to CWE-295, this represents a weakness in certificate validation where the application fails to properly validate the authenticity of SSL certificates, creating a direct pathway for attackers to intercept and potentially manipulate communications. The vulnerability specifically affects the application's ability to establish trust with remote servers, as it does not perform the essential step of verifying that the server's certificate was issued by a trusted certificate authority and that the certificate's subject matches the target server's hostname.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data interception to encompass complete compromise of user privacy and sensitive information handling. Mobile applications that fail to validate SSL certificates expose users to various attack vectors including credential theft, session hijacking, and data exfiltration. Attackers can exploit this weakness to establish fake server endpoints that appear legitimate to the user, potentially capturing login credentials, personal information, or financial data transmitted through the application. This vulnerability directly aligns with techniques described in the MITRE ATT&CK framework under the T1041 technique for data compression and T1566 for credential access through man-in-the-middle attacks. The implications are particularly severe for an e-commerce application like AVON Buy & Sell, which likely handles user account information, payment details, and personal contact data that could be compromised through this vulnerability.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability must address both immediate remediation and long-term architectural improvements in the application's security implementation. The most critical immediate action involves implementing proper certificate validation mechanisms that verify certificate chains against trusted certificate authorities, validate certificate expiration dates, and ensure hostname matching between the certificate and the target server. Security professionals should implement certificate pinning techniques to prevent the acceptance of fraudulent certificates, even if they are signed by legitimate certificate authorities. Organizations should also consider implementing additional security controls such as certificate transparency monitoring and regular security assessments of mobile applications. The remediation process must include comprehensive code review to identify all network communication points and ensure that SSL/TLS implementations properly validate certificates according to industry standards including those specified in NIST SP 800-52 for certificate management and RFC 5280 for X.509 certificate validation. This vulnerability underscores the critical importance of implementing robust security measures in mobile applications and demonstrates how seemingly simple cryptographic failures can create significant security risks for end users and organizations.