CVE-2014-7786 in English Football Magazine
Summary
by MITRE
The English Football Magazine (aka com.magzter.englishfootball) application 3.0 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 • 10/18/2024
The vulnerability described in CVE-2014-7786 represents a critical security flaw in the English Football Magazine Android application version 3.0, specifically targeting the application's handling of secure communications. This issue falls under the category of weak cryptographic practices and improper certificate validation mechanisms that expose users to significant risks during network communications. The application's failure to properly verify X.509 certificates from SSL servers creates an exploitable weakness that directly violates fundamental security principles governing secure network communications.
The technical flaw manifests in the application's complete absence of SSL certificate verification during secure connections to remote servers. When an Android application establishes SSL connections, it should validate the server's X.509 certificate against trusted certificate authorities to ensure the authenticity of the server and prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. This validation process typically involves checking certificate expiration dates, verifying the certificate chain, and confirming that the certificate was issued by a trusted authority. The English Football Magazine application bypasses all these verification steps, allowing any malicious actor to present a forged certificate and establish a seemingly legitimate connection with the application.
This vulnerability creates severe operational impacts for users and organizations relying on the application for accessing football-related content. Attackers can exploit this weakness to intercept sensitive user data, including personal information, login credentials, and potentially financial transactions if the application handles such data. The man-in-the-middle attack vector enables adversaries to not only eavesdrop on communications but also to actively modify data in transit, potentially redirecting users to malicious websites or injecting harmful content into the application's data streams. This risk is particularly concerning for mobile applications that may handle user accounts, personal preferences, or other sensitive data.
The security implications extend beyond simple data interception to encompass complete trust model compromise within the application's communication framework. According to CWE-295, this vulnerability represents a failure to validate certificates, which directly maps to the weakness of improper certificate validation. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability enables techniques such as T1041 (Exfiltration Over C2 Channel) and T1566 (Phishing) by allowing attackers to establish persistent communication channels with compromised applications. The vulnerability also aligns with the broader category of insecure communication protocols that are commonly exploited in mobile application attacks, as outlined in various mobile security best practices.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability require immediate implementation of proper SSL certificate validation within the application's networking layer. Developers should implement certificate pinning mechanisms that validate server certificates against known good certificates or certificate chains, ensuring that only trusted certificates are accepted for secure communications. The application should also implement proper error handling for certificate validation failures, logging such events and potentially terminating connections when certificate validation fails. Additionally, regular security audits and code reviews should be conducted to identify similar issues in other network communication components. Organizations should also consider implementing network monitoring solutions to detect anomalous communication patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. The fix should be implemented following secure coding guidelines that emphasize the importance of cryptographic best practices and proper certificate management in mobile application development, as recommended by industry standards including OWASP Mobile Security Project guidelines and NIST cybersecurity frameworks.