CVE-2016-15036 in Workflow Manager
Summary
by MITRE • 12/23/2023
** UNSUPPORTED WHEN ASSIGNED ** A vulnerability was found in Deis Workflow Manager up to 2.3.2. It has been classified as problematic. This affects an unknown part. The manipulation leads to race condition. The complexity of an attack is rather high. The exploitability is told to be difficult. Upgrading to version 2.3.3 is able to address this issue. The patch is named 31fe3bccbdde134a185752e53380330d16053f7f. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component. The associated identifier of this vulnerability is VDB-248847. NOTE: This vulnerability only affects products that are no longer supported by the maintainer.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/06/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2016-15036 represents a race condition flaw discovered in Deis Workflow Manager versions prior to 2.3.3. This issue stems from the improper handling of concurrent operations within the platform's architecture, creating opportunities for malicious actors to exploit temporal dependencies in system operations. The vulnerability's classification as problematic indicates serious security implications that could compromise the integrity and availability of deployed applications. The race condition manifests in an unknown specific component of the Deis Workflow Manager system, making it particularly challenging to assess and remediate without comprehensive system analysis.
The technical exploitation of this race condition requires sophisticated attack capabilities due to the high complexity involved in orchestrating the precise timing necessary to trigger the vulnerability. Attackers must carefully manipulate concurrent processes to achieve the desired outcome, which typically involves exploiting the window of opportunity between resource allocation and deallocation. This difficulty in exploitation aligns with the vulnerability's classification as having challenging exploitability characteristics, suggesting that while the vulnerability exists, successful exploitation requires significant technical expertise and careful planning. The underlying race condition vulnerability pattern corresponds to CWE-362, which specifically addresses concurrent execution issues that can lead to security flaws through improper synchronization.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data corruption or unauthorized access, potentially affecting the entire deployment pipeline and application lifecycle management within Deis Workflow Manager environments. Organizations utilizing unsupported versions face increased risk of service disruption, data integrity issues, and potential compromise of their containerized application infrastructure. The vulnerability's existence in a platform that has reached end-of-life status means that no further security updates or patches are available from the maintainers, leaving affected systems permanently exposed to potential exploitation. This situation creates a particularly dangerous scenario where organizations cannot rely on vendor-provided security fixes to address the identified weakness.
The recommended mitigation strategy focuses exclusively on upgrading to version 2.3.3 or later, which contains the specific patch 31fe3bccbdde134a185752e53380330d16053f7f designed to address the race condition. This upgrade path represents the only viable solution for organizations that continue to operate unsupported software versions. The patch implementation likely involves correcting synchronization mechanisms and ensuring proper resource management protocols that prevent the race condition from occurring during concurrent operations. Organizations should carefully evaluate their migration strategy to ensure compatibility with the updated platform while maintaining service availability. The vulnerability's status as a VDB-248847 identifier indicates it was tracked through a vulnerability database system, providing additional context for security researchers and practitioners. Given that this vulnerability affects unsupported products, organizations should consider migrating to actively maintained platforms to ensure ongoing security support and protection against future similar issues. The lack of vendor support for this vulnerability means that organizations must rely on internal security teams or third-party solutions to address potential exploitation attempts, significantly increasing the complexity of security management for affected environments.