CVE-2015-5182 in JBoss A-MQ
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the jolokia API in A-MQ.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/14/2021
The CVE-2015-5182 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw within the jolokia API component of A-MQ messaging platform. This vulnerability resides in the application layer and specifically targets the API endpoint responsible for exposing JMX management capabilities through RESTful interfaces. The jolokia API serves as a bridge between JMX (Java Management Extensions) and web applications, allowing administrators to monitor and manage Java applications through HTTP requests. The CSRF vulnerability arises from the absence of proper request validation mechanisms that would verify the authenticity and origin of API requests.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability occurs when an attacker crafts malicious web pages or scripts that automatically submit requests to the jolokia API endpoint without the victim's knowledge or consent. Since the API does not implement anti-CSRF tokens or other validation mechanisms to ensure that requests originate from legitimate sources, authenticated users who visit malicious websites can unknowingly perform administrative actions on the A-MQ server. This includes operations such as creating new users, modifying existing configurations, or executing arbitrary commands through the exposed JMX interfaces. The vulnerability particularly affects scenarios where users maintain persistent sessions with administrative privileges, making the attack surface more expansive and dangerous.
The operational impact of CVE-2015-5182 extends beyond simple data exposure to encompass complete system compromise and unauthorized access to critical messaging infrastructure. Attackers could leverage this vulnerability to gain persistent access to the messaging platform, potentially disrupting services, stealing sensitive messages, or establishing backdoors for future exploitation. The vulnerability affects organizations that rely on A-MQ for enterprise messaging and monitoring, where the jolokia API is exposed to untrusted networks or where administrative users maintain long-lived browser sessions. This makes the attack particularly dangerous in environments where security controls are insufficient and where users do not practice proper session management protocols.
Organizations should implement comprehensive mitigation strategies that align with industry best practices and security frameworks such as those outlined in CWE-352 for CSRF vulnerabilities and ATT&CK technique T1078 for legitimate credentials. The primary remediation involves implementing proper CSRF token validation mechanisms within the jolokia API endpoints, ensuring that all administrative requests include unique tokens that are validated against the user's session. Network segmentation and access controls should be enforced to limit exposure of the jolokia API to trusted networks only, while implementing proper authentication and authorization mechanisms that enforce the principle of least privilege. Regular security assessments and penetration testing should be conducted to identify similar vulnerabilities in other exposed APIs, and security awareness training should be provided to administrators to recognize and avoid potentially malicious web content that could exploit this vulnerability.