CVE-2014-7874 in System Management Homepage
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in HP System Management Homepage (SMH) before 3.2.3 on HP-UX B.11.23, and before 3.2.8 on HP-UX B.11.31, allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified victims via unknown vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/12/2024
The CVE-2014-7874 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw discovered in Hewlett Packard's System Management Homepage software. This vulnerability affects specific versions of HP SMH running on HP-UX operating systems, namely versions prior to 3.2.3 on HP-UX B.11.23 and before 3.2.8 on HP-UX B.11.31. The flaw enables remote attackers to exploit the authentication mechanism by tricking users into performing unintended actions through malicious web requests. The vulnerability stems from insufficient validation of request origins and lacks proper anti-CSRF token implementation, creating a significant security risk for managed systems.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability allows attackers to manipulate authenticated sessions without requiring knowledge of user credentials. The flaw operates by exploiting the trust relationship between the web application and the user's browser, where legitimate requests are automatically authenticated by the system. Attackers can construct malicious web pages or send crafted requests that, when executed by an authenticated user, perform administrative actions on the target system. The unspecified nature of the attack vectors suggests that multiple methods could be employed to exploit this weakness, including phishing attacks, malicious links in emails, or compromised websites that leverage the victim's active session.
From an operational standpoint, this vulnerability poses severe risks to enterprise environments relying on HP SMH for system management and monitoring. The ability to hijack authentication sessions means that attackers could potentially perform critical administrative functions such as changing system configurations, modifying user permissions, accessing sensitive data, or even disabling security features. The impact extends beyond individual system compromise to potentially affect entire network infrastructures managed through the vulnerable SMH interface. Organizations using affected versions face significant exposure to unauthorized system modifications and potential data breaches, particularly in environments where system administrators maintain active sessions for extended periods.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses in software applications. This classification indicates that the flaw represents a fundamental security design issue where the application fails to validate the source of requests properly. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to techniques involving privilege escalation and persistence through session hijacking. The attack surface is particularly concerning for enterprise environments where HP SMH is used for critical system administration tasks. Organizations should implement immediate mitigation strategies including applying the vendor-provided patches, implementing additional authentication layers, and monitoring for suspicious administrative activities that could indicate exploitation attempts. Network segmentation and access control measures can help reduce the potential impact while permanent fixes are deployed.
The remediation process requires organizations to upgrade their HP SMH installations to versions 3.2.3 or later for HP-UX B.11.23 and 3.2.8 or later for HP-UX B.11.31. Additionally, administrators should conduct comprehensive vulnerability assessments to identify any other potentially affected systems within their environment. The vulnerability demonstrates the importance of maintaining up-to-date security patches and implementing proper input validation mechanisms in web applications. Organizations should also consider implementing additional security controls such as multi-factor authentication and session management improvements to further protect against similar threats.