CVE-2014-6744 in Al-Ahsa News
Summary
by MITRE
The Al-Ahsa News (aka com.alahsa.news) application 2.0 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 • 09/15/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2014-6744 affects the Al-Ahsa News Android application version 2.0, representing a critical security flaw in the application's implementation of secure communication protocols. This weakness resides in the application's failure to properly validate X.509 certificates during SSL/TLS connections, creating a significant attack surface that adversaries can exploit to compromise user data integrity and confidentiality. The vulnerability specifically targets the certificate verification mechanism that should ensure the authenticity of SSL servers before establishing secure connections.
This technical flaw constitutes a severe deviation from established security practices and represents a violation of the fundamental principles of secure communication. The application's inability to verify SSL certificates means that it accepts any certificate presented by a server without proper validation, including certificates that have been tampered with or issued by untrusted authorities. This weakness directly enables man-in-the-middle attacks where attackers can intercept communications between the mobile application and its backend servers, allowing them to decrypt and potentially modify sensitive data transmitted between the user's device and the application's servers.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data interception, as it fundamentally undermines the trust model that secure mobile applications should maintain with their users. Attackers can leverage this weakness to impersonate legitimate servers and gain access to sensitive information such as user credentials, personal data, or proprietary content that the application may handle. The vulnerability affects all users of the Al-Ahsa News application who establish SSL connections with the backend services, potentially exposing them to credential theft, data breaches, or other malicious activities that could compromise both individual privacy and organizational security. This flaw aligns with CWE-295, which specifically addresses improper certificate validation in security protocols, and represents a clear violation of the secure coding practices outlined in the OWASP Mobile Top 10.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability require immediate implementation of proper SSL certificate validation mechanisms within the application. Developers must ensure that the application validates X.509 certificates against trusted certificate authorities, verifies certificate chains, and implements proper hostname verification procedures. The solution involves configuring the application to reject certificates that fail validation checks, including those with expired dates, self-signed certificates, or certificates issued by untrusted authorities. Additionally, the application should implement certificate pinning techniques to further strengthen the security posture against certificate-based attacks. Organizations should also consider implementing network monitoring to detect anomalous certificate behavior and establish regular security assessments to identify similar vulnerabilities in other mobile applications. This remediation approach addresses the core issue identified in the ATT&CK framework under T1566, which covers credential harvesting through man-in-the-middle attacks, and aligns with the security controls recommended in NIST SP 800-53 for secure application development and deployment.