CVE-2014-7533 in Seguradora
Summary
by MITRE
The NotreDame Seguradora (aka br.com.notredame.mobile.NotreDame) application 1.2 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 • 10/10/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2014-7533 affects the NotreDame Seguradora mobile application version 1.2 for Android platforms, representing a critical security flaw in the application's implementation of secure communications. This issue stems from 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 impacts the application's ability to establish trust with remote servers, fundamentally undermining the security assurances that SSL/TLS protocols are designed to provide.
The technical flaw manifests as a complete absence of certificate verification mechanisms within the application's network communication stack. When the NotreDame application establishes connections to remote servers, it fails to perform the essential validation steps required to confirm that the server's certificate is legitimate and issued by a trusted certificate authority. This omission allows attackers to intercept communications and present forged certificates that the application will accept without question. The vulnerability directly relates to CWE-295, which addresses improper certificate validation, and represents a classic example of weak cryptographic implementation where the security controls meant to protect against man-in-the-middle attacks are entirely absent. The application's network security architecture lacks the fundamental requirement to verify certificate chains, validate certificate expiration dates, and ensure proper certificate subject identification.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data interception, as it enables sophisticated attack scenarios that can result in comprehensive data breaches and user information compromise. Attackers can leverage this weakness to perform man-in-the-middle attacks, where they position themselves between the user and legitimate servers to capture sensitive information such as login credentials, personal identification data, financial information, and other confidential communications. The vulnerability is particularly dangerous because it affects mobile applications that likely handle sensitive personal and financial data typical of insurance services, making the potential attack surface highly valuable to threat actors. According to ATT&CK framework, this vulnerability maps to T1046 (Network Service Scanning) and T1566 (Phishing) as attackers can use the compromised communication channels to facilitate further exploitation. The absence of certificate validation essentially provides attackers with a backdoor into the application's secure communication channels, potentially enabling data exfiltration, session hijacking, and credential theft.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability require immediate implementation of proper SSL/TLS certificate validation mechanisms within the application. The fix involves implementing robust certificate pinning techniques, ensuring that the application validates certificate chains against trusted root certificates, and verifying certificate expiration dates and subject names. Security measures should include the implementation of certificate validation libraries that properly handle X.509 certificate verification, integration of certificate pinning to prevent the acceptance of forged certificates, and regular updates to the application's trusted certificate store. Organizations should also implement network monitoring to detect unusual certificate behavior and establish proper security testing procedures including static code analysis and dynamic security testing to identify similar vulnerabilities in other applications. The remediation process must address both the immediate certificate validation failure and ensure that future development practices incorporate proper security controls from the initial design phase. This vulnerability underscores the critical importance of following security best practices for mobile application development and the necessity of comprehensive security testing before deployment to production environments.