CVE-2014-5600 in familyconnect
Summary
by MITRE
The familyconnect (aka com.comcast.plaxo.familyconnect.app) application 1.5.0 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 identified as CVE-2014-5600 resides within the familyconnect Android application version 1.5.0, specifically targeting the application's handling of secure communication protocols. This flaw represents a critical security weakness in the application's implementation of SSL/TLS certificate validation mechanisms, creating a significant exposure for users who rely on the app for sensitive data transmission and retrieval.
The technical flaw manifests as a complete absence of X.509 certificate verification within the application's SSL implementation. When the application establishes secure connections to remote servers, it fails to validate the server certificates against trusted certificate authorities, effectively disabling the cryptographic security measures designed to prevent unauthorized parties from impersonating legitimate services. This vulnerability directly maps to CWE-295, which addresses improper certificate validation, and represents a fundamental failure in the application's security architecture that undermines the entire SSL/TLS protocol framework.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability creates an ideal environment for man-in-the-middle attacks where malicious actors can intercept communications between the Android application and its intended servers. Attackers can present forged SSL certificates that appear legitimate to the vulnerable application, allowing them to decrypt and potentially modify sensitive data transmitted through the application. This exposure particularly impacts users who may be transmitting personal information, account credentials, or other confidential data through the familyconnect application, as the security assurances typically provided by SSL/TLS encryption are completely bypassed.
The attack vector for this vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1573.002, which describes the use of unencrypted or weakly encrypted communications to capture data. Threat actors can exploit this weakness to eavesdrop on user sessions, capture login credentials, access personal data, or even inject malicious content into the application's communication channels. The vulnerability's impact extends beyond simple data theft to potentially enabling more sophisticated attacks such as session hijacking or credential reuse attacks that could compromise user accounts across multiple services.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability require immediate attention from both application developers and security administrators. The primary remediation involves implementing proper certificate validation mechanisms within the application's SSL/TLS implementation, ensuring that all server certificates are verified against trusted certificate authorities and that certificate pinning mechanisms are appropriately configured. Organizations should also implement network-level monitoring to detect anomalous traffic patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. Additionally, users should be advised to avoid using the vulnerable application until patches are deployed, and security teams should conduct thorough assessments of similar applications within their environment that may exhibit comparable certificate validation weaknesses. The remediation process must address the root cause by ensuring that all SSL/TLS communications within the application adhere to established security standards and best practices for certificate validation and trust management.