CVE-2016-0948 in Connect
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Adobe Connect before 95.2 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified victims via unknown vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/07/2022
The CVE-2016-0948 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw discovered in Adobe Connect versions prior to 95.2. This vulnerability falls under the CWE-352 category, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses in software applications. The flaw enables remote attackers to manipulate authenticated sessions by tricking victims into executing unintended actions against a web application they are currently authenticated with, creating a significant security risk for organizations relying on Adobe Connect for collaborative online meetings and training sessions. The vulnerability's impact extends beyond simple data theft as it can potentially allow attackers to perform administrative functions within the application.
Adobe Connect is widely used for virtual classrooms, corporate meetings, and online training environments, making this CSRF vulnerability particularly dangerous. The unspecified victim vectors indicate that attackers could potentially target any authenticated user within the application, regardless of their role or permissions level. This broad attack surface means that even regular users could be exploited to perform actions that could compromise entire meeting sessions, manipulate participant lists, or access sensitive training materials. The vulnerability operates by exploiting the trust relationship between the web application and the user's browser, leveraging the automatic inclusion of cookies and authentication tokens in HTTP requests without proper validation of the request origin.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is substantial for organizations using Adobe Connect as their primary collaboration platform. Attackers could potentially hijack user sessions to perform unauthorized actions such as creating new meetings, modifying existing sessions, adding or removing participants, or accessing confidential content. The attack typically involves crafting malicious web pages or email attachments that automatically submit requests to the vulnerable Adobe Connect application when a victim visits the page or opens the attachment. This could lead to complete compromise of meeting sessions, unauthorized access to training materials, and potential data breaches. Organizations with strict compliance requirements face additional risks as unauthorized modifications to meeting records or participant data could violate regulatory standards.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2016-0948 should focus on implementing proper CSRF protection mechanisms such as anti-CSRF tokens that are generated per session and validated on each request. Organizations should immediately upgrade to Adobe Connect version 95.2 or later, which includes fixes for this vulnerability. Additional protective measures include implementing Content Security Policy headers, validating the referer header, and ensuring that all state-changing operations require explicit user confirmation. The vulnerability also highlights the importance of regular security assessments and patch management processes, as outlined in the MITRE ATT&CK framework's application security category. Network segmentation and monitoring for suspicious authentication patterns can further reduce the risk of exploitation, while user education about avoiding suspicious links and attachments remains a crucial defensive layer against such social engineering attacks.