CVE-2015-3125 in Flash Player
Summary
by MITRE
Adobe Flash Player before 13.0.0.302 and 14.x through 18.x before 18.0.0.203 on Windows and OS X and before 11.2.202.481 on Linux, Adobe AIR before 18.0.0.180, Adobe AIR SDK before 18.0.0.180, and Adobe AIR SDK & Compiler before 18.0.0.180 allow remote attackers to bypass the Same Origin Policy via unspecified vectors, a different vulnerability than CVE-2014-0578, CVE-2015-3115, CVE-2015-3116, and CVE-2015-5116.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/23/2022
Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR suffered from a critical Same Origin Policy bypass vulnerability that allowed remote attackers to circumvent fundamental web security mechanisms. This vulnerability existed across multiple versions of the software and affected different operating systems including Windows, OS X, and Linux platforms. The flaw enabled attackers to execute cross-origin requests that should have been restricted by browser security policies, effectively undermining the core security model that prevents malicious websites from accessing resources on different domains. The vulnerability was particularly concerning because it operated outside the scope of previously known issues such as CVE-2014-0578, CVE-2015-3115, CVE-2015-3116, and CVE-2015-5116, indicating a distinct attack surface that required separate mitigation strategies.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability involved exploiting weaknesses in how Flash Player and AIR handled cross-domain policy enforcement. The Same Origin Policy is a critical security mechanism that restricts how documents or scripts loaded from one origin can interact with resources from another origin, preventing unauthorized data access and cross-site request forgery attacks. When this policy is bypassed, attackers can access sensitive data, perform unauthorized operations, and potentially exfiltrate information from within the user's browser environment. This vulnerability was classified under CWE-284, which deals with inadequate access control mechanisms, and represented a significant weakening of the browser security model that Flash Player was designed to enforce.
The operational impact of this vulnerability was severe as it provided attackers with a powerful vector for executing sophisticated attacks against users. The bypass allowed malicious actors to access resources that should have been protected by cross-origin restrictions, potentially enabling data theft, session hijacking, and privilege escalation attacks. Attackers could leverage this vulnerability to target web applications that relied on Flash Player for functionality, particularly those handling sensitive user information or administrative functions. The attack surface was broad given the widespread use of Flash Player across various platforms and the numerous applications that integrated Flash components for rich media experiences or interactive web content.
Organizations and users needed to implement immediate mitigations to address this vulnerability, including updating to patched versions of Adobe Flash Player and AIR as soon as possible. The recommended remediation strategy involved deploying the latest security patches released by Adobe, which addressed the specific policy enforcement flaws in the affected software versions. System administrators should have prioritized patch management to ensure all affected systems were updated, particularly those running older versions of Flash Player or AIR that remained in use within enterprise environments. Additionally, organizations could implement network-level controls and browser security policies to restrict Flash content execution where possible. This vulnerability highlighted the importance of maintaining up-to-date security patches and demonstrated how legacy software components could provide persistent attack vectors when vulnerabilities remained unaddressed. The incident reinforced principles from the ATT&CK framework related to privilege escalation and defense evasion techniques that attackers could utilize when exploiting such fundamental security flaws in client-side software components.