CVE-2016-10679 in selenium-standalone-painful
Summary
by MITRE
selenium-standalone-painful installs a start-selenium command line to start a standalone selenium server with chrome-driver. selenium-standalone-painful downloads binary resources over HTTP, which leaves it vulnerable to MITM attacks. It may be possible to cause remote code execution (RCE) by swapping out the requested resources with an attacker controlled copy if the attacker is on the network or positioned in between the user and the remote server.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/09/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2016-10679 resides within the selenium-standalone-painful package, which serves as a tool for managing selenium standalone servers with chrome-driver capabilities. This package is commonly utilized in automated testing environments where developers need to quickly deploy selenium servers for web application testing across different browsers. The tool's primary function involves downloading and installing binary resources required for selenium operations, making it a critical component in testing infrastructure setups. The security concern emerges from the package's reliance on unencrypted HTTP connections for resource downloads rather than secure HTTPS protocols, creating a fundamental weakness in the software supply chain that can be exploited by malicious actors positioned within the network.
The technical flaw manifests in the package's implementation of resource retrieval mechanisms that fail to validate the integrity of downloaded binaries. When selenium-standalone-painful executes the start-selenium command, it attempts to download necessary components such as chromedriver binaries from remote servers using HTTP protocols. This approach exposes the system to man-in-the-middle attacks where an attacker can intercept the communication between the client and the remote server. The vulnerability stems from the absence of cryptographic verification mechanisms that would normally ensure the authenticity and integrity of downloaded files. According to CWE-319, this represents a weakness in cryptographic protocols where cleartext transmission of sensitive data occurs, making it susceptible to interception and manipulation.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data interception, potentially enabling remote code execution within the affected system. If an attacker successfully positions themselves between the user and the remote server, they can replace legitimate binary resources with malicious copies that contain backdoors or other harmful code. This type of attack falls under the ATT&CK framework's technique T1059 for command and scripting interpreter and T1071 for application layer protocol. The consequences can be severe in automated testing environments where the selenium server is often run with elevated privileges, potentially allowing attackers to gain unauthorized access to testing infrastructure and compromise the integrity of the entire testing pipeline. Organizations using this package may unknowingly execute malicious code during the selenium server startup process, leading to persistent threats within their testing environments.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2016-10679 should focus on implementing secure communication protocols and establishing proper verification mechanisms for downloaded resources. The most effective immediate solution involves upgrading to newer versions of selenium packages that utilize HTTPS for all downloads and implement cryptographic verification of downloaded binaries. Organizations should also consider implementing network-level security measures such as SSL inspection and certificate pinning to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. Additionally, the use of dependency management tools that can verify package integrity through checksums or digital signatures should be enforced. Security teams must conduct regular vulnerability assessments of their testing infrastructure and ensure that all automated tools use encrypted communication channels to prevent similar issues from occurring in other components of their software supply chain. The vulnerability highlights the critical importance of secure software distribution practices and proper implementation of cryptographic security measures in development tooling environments.