CVE-2016-2889 in Jazz Reporting Service
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the Report Builder and Data Collection Component (DCC) in IBM Jazz Reporting Service (JRS) 5.x before 5.0.2 ifix016, 6.0 and 6.0.1 before 6.0.1 ifix005, and 6.0.2 before ifix002 allows remote authenticated users to hijack the authentication of arbitrary users.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/18/2019
The CVE-2016-2889 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw affecting IBM Jazz Reporting Service versions 5.x through 6.0.2. This vulnerability specifically targets the Report Builder and Data Collection Component within the JRS platform, creating a significant security risk for organizations utilizing these reporting services. The flaw allows remote authenticated attackers to exploit the system's authentication mechanisms by crafting malicious requests that appear to originate from legitimate users, effectively enabling unauthorized actions through stolen authentication tokens.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from the absence of proper anti-CSRF token validation within the affected components of IBM Jazz Reporting Service. When authenticated users navigate to malicious websites or click on compromised links, the system fails to verify that requests originate from legitimate sources within the application's own domain. This weakness allows attackers to leverage the victim's existing session and authentication context to perform unauthorized operations such as creating reports, modifying data collection settings, or executing administrative functions without proper authorization. The vulnerability specifically affects the DCC and Report Builder modules, which handle sensitive reporting and data collection functionalities that organizations rely upon for business-critical operations.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses severe risks to enterprise environments that depend on IBM Jazz Reporting Service for business intelligence and reporting tasks. Attackers could potentially compromise data integrity by manipulating report configurations, gain unauthorized access to sensitive business data through data collection components, or escalate privileges within the reporting system. The authenticated nature of the exploit means that attackers need only obtain valid user credentials or trick users into visiting malicious sites, making the attack surface relatively broad. Organizations using these reporting services could face data breaches, unauthorized modifications to business reports, and potential disruption of critical reporting workflows that impact decision-making processes.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses in software applications. According to ATT&CK framework, this represents a technique under T1566 - Phishing, where attackers leverage authenticated user sessions to execute malicious actions. The impact extends beyond simple data theft to include potential system compromise through privilege escalation and data manipulation. Organizations should immediately apply the vendor-provided fixes including ifix016 for 5.x versions, ifix005 for 6.0 and 6.0.1, and ifix002 for 6.0.2. Additionally, implementing proper CSRF token validation mechanisms, monitoring for unauthorized administrative activities, and conducting regular security assessments of reporting systems will help mitigate the risk of exploitation. Network segmentation and user access controls should also be reviewed to limit potential damage from successful CSRF attacks.