CVE-2015-0196 in WebSphere Commerce
Summary
by MITRE
CRLF injection vulnerability in IBM WebSphere Commerce 6.0 through 6.0.0.11 and 7.0 before 7.0.0.8 Cumulative iFix 2 allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary HTTP headers and conduct HTTP response splitting attacks via a crafted URL.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/20/2019
The CVE-2015-0196 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site scripting and response splitting flaw affecting IBM WebSphere Commerce versions 6.0 through 6.0.0.11 and 7.0 before 7.0.0.8 Cumulative iFix 2. This vulnerability resides in the application's handling of user-supplied input within URL parameters, specifically exposing the system to CRLF (Carriage Return Line Feed) injection attacks. The flaw stems from inadequate input validation and sanitization mechanisms that fail to properly filter or escape special characters including carriage return and line feed sequences. Attackers can exploit this weakness by crafting malicious URLs containing CRLF sequences such as %0d%0a or \r\n, which when processed by the vulnerable application, get interpreted as header terminators in HTTP responses. This vulnerability directly maps to CWE-113, which describes improper neutralization of CRLF sequences in HTTP headers, and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1190 for exploiting vulnerabilities in web applications. The security implications extend beyond simple header injection, as this flaw enables sophisticated response splitting attacks where attackers can inject multiple HTTP responses into a single HTTP transaction, potentially leading to session hijacking, cache poisoning, or cross-site scripting attacks.
The technical exploitation of CVE-2015-0196 occurs when user input flows through the application's URL parsing logic without proper sanitization of CRLF characters. When a vulnerable application processes a URL containing malicious CRLF sequences, these sequences are appended to HTTP headers, allowing attackers to inject arbitrary headers into the HTTP response. The attack vector typically involves manipulating URL parameters that are directly used in HTTP header construction or response generation. The vulnerability is particularly dangerous because it can be leveraged to inject malicious headers such as Set-Cookie, Location, or Content-Type, enabling attackers to redirect users to malicious sites, inject session cookies, or manipulate response content. This creates a pathway for attackers to perform session fixation attacks, bypass authentication mechanisms, or inject malicious content into web responses that are subsequently cached by intermediaries such as proxies or CDNs. The vulnerability's impact is amplified by the fact that IBM WebSphere Commerce applications often handle sensitive transactional data, making successful exploitation potentially devastating for e-commerce operations and customer data integrity.
The operational impact of CVE-2015-0196 extends far beyond immediate security breaches, affecting business continuity, customer trust, and regulatory compliance across multiple domains. Organizations running vulnerable WebSphere Commerce instances face potential data exfiltration, session hijacking, and man-in-the-middle attack scenarios where attackers can manipulate user sessions and redirect traffic to malicious destinations. The vulnerability's potential for cache poisoning means that compromised responses could affect multiple users through shared caching infrastructure, amplifying the attack scope. From a compliance perspective, successful exploitation could violate PCI DSS requirements for secure handling of payment information, GDPR provisions for data protection, and other regulatory frameworks governing e-commerce transactions. The vulnerability also impacts the application's ability to maintain consistent security posture, as it allows attackers to manipulate HTTP responses in ways that could bypass security controls such as Content Security Policy headers or security response headers. Organizations may experience service disruption, loss of customer confidence, and potential legal ramifications if exploitation leads to unauthorized access to sensitive customer data or financial transactions.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2015-0196 should implement multiple layers of defense to protect against CRLF injection and response splitting attacks. The primary remediation involves applying the official IBM iFix patches released for WebSphere Commerce versions 6.0.0.11 and 7.0.0.8 Cumulative iFix 2, which address the root cause through proper input validation and sanitization. Organizations should implement comprehensive input validation at all entry points, particularly URL parameters and user-supplied data, ensuring that CRLF sequences are either stripped or properly encoded before processing. Web application firewalls and security proxies should be configured to detect and block suspicious CRLF sequences in HTTP requests. Additionally, implementing strict HTTP header generation practices that prevent user input from directly influencing header construction, along with regular security code reviews and penetration testing, will help identify similar vulnerabilities in other application components. Organizations should also consider implementing Content Security Policy headers and other security response headers to limit the impact of potential exploitation, while maintaining detailed logging and monitoring of HTTP request patterns to detect anomalous behavior indicative of attack attempts. The remediation process should include thorough testing to ensure that patches do not introduce regression issues in application functionality while maintaining the security posture against both current and future CRLF injection threats.