CVE-2014-6090 in Curam Social Program Management
Summary
by MITRE
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in the (1) DataMappingEditorCommands, (2) DatastoreEditorCommands, and (3) IEGEditorCommands servlets in IBM Curam Social Program Management (SPM) 5.2 SP6 before EP6, 6.0 SP2 before EP26, 6.0.3 before 6.0.3.0 iFix8, 6.0.4 before 6.0.4.5 iFix10, and 6.0.5 before 6.0.5.6 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users for requests that insert XSS sequences.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/21/2019
The vulnerability CVE-2014-6090 represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw affecting IBM Curam Social Program Management versions prior to specific service packs and iFixes. This vulnerability resides within three distinct servlet components: DataMappingEditorCommands, DatastoreEditorCommands, and IEGEditorCommands, which collectively handle data management and configuration operations within the social program management platform. The flaw enables remote attackers to exploit the system's authentication mechanisms by crafting malicious requests that appear to originate from legitimate authenticated users.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from the absence of proper CSRF protection mechanisms in the affected servlets, allowing attackers to manipulate the application's behavior through carefully crafted requests. When an authenticated user visits a malicious website or clicks on a compromised link, the attacker can leverage the user's existing session to inject XSS sequences into the application's data processing pipelines. This occurs because the vulnerable servlets fail to validate the origin of requests or verify the authenticity of user intentions, creating a pathway for unauthorized actions to be performed under the guise of legitimate users.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe as it enables attackers to perform arbitrary actions within the application's administrative functions without requiring explicit authentication credentials. The ability to inject XSS sequences means that attackers can potentially execute malicious scripts in the context of other users' browsers, leading to session hijacking, data theft, or further exploitation of the application's functionality. This vulnerability particularly affects organizations using IBM Curam SPM for managing social programs, where the compromised systems could handle sensitive personal data and benefit information.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should immediately implement mitigations including the application of the relevant service packs and iFixes released by IBM to address the CSRF protection gaps in the affected servlets. Additionally, implementing proper request validation mechanisms, including anti-CSRF tokens and origin validation checks, would significantly reduce the risk of exploitation. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses cross-site request forgery vulnerabilities, and represents a significant concern from an ATT&CK framework perspective under the T1566 technique category for credential access through social engineering and session manipulation attacks.