CVE-2015-1857 in OpenDaylight Helium
Summary
by MITRE
The odl-mdsal-apidocs feature in OpenDaylight Helium allow remote attackers to obtain sensitive information by leveraging missing AAA restrictions.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/01/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2015-1857 resides within the odl-mdsal-apidocs feature of OpenDaylight Helium, a widely used software-defined networking controller platform. This issue represents a critical security flaw that stems from inadequate access control mechanisms, specifically the absence of proper authentication, authorization, and accounting restrictions within the API documentation component. The vulnerability affects the management and operational capabilities of the OpenDaylight platform, which is designed to provide centralized network control and programmable network services through its modular architecture.
The technical flaw manifests as a missing authentication and authorization check within the API documentation feature, allowing any remote attacker to access sensitive operational information without proper credentials or privileges. This vulnerability falls under the category of insufficient authorization as defined by CWE-285, where the system fails to properly verify that an actor has sufficient privileges to access specific resources. The affected component provides API documentation that includes detailed information about the controller's internal APIs, data models, and operational interfaces, which could reveal critical system architecture details to unauthorized parties. Attackers can exploit this weakness to gather comprehensive information about the network controller's functionality, potentially enabling more sophisticated attacks against the system.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple information disclosure, as it provides attackers with valuable reconnaissance data that could facilitate subsequent attacks. The exposure of API documentation can reveal internal service endpoints, data structures, and operational interfaces that attackers could leverage for privilege escalation or service disruption. This vulnerability particularly affects network administrators and security professionals who rely on OpenDaylight for their network automation and management tasks, as it undermines the security posture of their network infrastructure. The attack surface is significantly expanded since the API documentation often includes information about available APIs, their parameters, and expected responses, which can be used to craft targeted attacks against the controller's services.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability should focus on implementing proper access controls and authentication mechanisms within the API documentation feature. Organizations should ensure that all management interfaces and documentation components require appropriate authentication before granting access to sensitive information. The recommended approach involves enforcing role-based access control policies that restrict documentation access to authorized administrators only, while also implementing network segmentation to limit exposure of management interfaces. Security controls should include regular audits of access logs to detect unauthorized access attempts and the implementation of network monitoring solutions that can identify suspicious activities related to API documentation access. According to ATT&CK framework, this vulnerability maps to T1087.002 (Account Discovery) and T1566 (Phishing) as attackers can use the exposed information to craft more convincing social engineering attacks or to identify potential targets for privilege escalation attacks. The fix typically involves implementing proper AAA (Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting) controls within the affected component and ensuring that all management interfaces require valid credentials before granting access to sensitive operational information.