CVE-2015-2852 in SSL Visibility Appliance
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the WebUI component in Blue Coat SSL Visibility Appliance SV800, SV1800, SV2800, and SV3800 3.6.x through 3.8.x before 3.8.4 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of administrators.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/24/2025
The CVE-2015-2852 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw within the WebUI component of Blue Coat SSL Visibility Appliance models including SV800, SV1800, SV2800, and SV3800. This vulnerability affects firmware versions 3.6.x through 3.8.x prior to 3.8.4, creating a significant security risk for organizations relying on these appliances for SSL traffic visibility and monitoring. The flaw specifically targets the authentication mechanism of the web-based management interface, allowing remote attackers to exploit the system without requiring valid credentials.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from the absence of proper anti-CSRF tokens or validation mechanisms within the WebUI component. When administrators interact with the appliance's management interface, the system fails to verify that requests originate from legitimate administrative sessions. This weakness enables attackers to craft malicious web pages or send specially crafted requests that, when executed by an authenticated administrator, perform unauthorized administrative actions. The vulnerability operates at the application layer and leverages the trust relationship between the web browser and the appliance, making it particularly dangerous as it can be exploited through social engineering techniques or by tricking administrators into visiting malicious websites.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple privilege escalation, as it allows attackers to completely compromise administrative access to the SSL visibility appliances. Once exploited, attackers can modify network configurations, alter logging settings, disable security features, or even gain access to sensitive SSL traffic data that the appliance is designed to monitor and analyze. This compromise directly violates the principle of least privilege and undermines the security posture of organizations that depend on these appliances for network security monitoring. The vulnerability is particularly concerning in enterprise environments where these appliances are used to monitor and control SSL traffic across critical network segments.
Organizations should immediately implement mitigations including updating to firmware version 3.8.4 or later, which contains the necessary patches to address the CSRF vulnerability. Network segmentation and access controls should be reviewed to limit administrative access to these appliances, while additional monitoring should be implemented to detect unauthorized administrative activities. Security teams should also conduct comprehensive vulnerability assessments to identify any potential exploitation attempts and ensure that proper administrative access controls are in place. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses cross-site request forgery weaknesses, and represents a significant concern under the ATT&CK framework's privilege escalation techniques, particularly those involving web application exploitation. Organizations must also consider implementing additional security controls such as web application firewalls and regular security audits to prevent similar vulnerabilities from being exploited in other components of their network infrastructure.