CVE-2016-6043 in Tivoli Storage Manager Operations Center
Summary
by MITRE
Tivoli Storage Manager Operations Center could allow a local user to take over a previously logged in user due to session expiration not being enforced.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/02/2017
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2016-6043 affects IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Operations Center, a centralized management solution for storage environments that provides monitoring and administration capabilities for storage systems. This security flaw represents a critical session management weakness that undermines the authentication and authorization mechanisms of the system. The vulnerability specifically manifests when the operations center fails to properly enforce session expiration policies, creating a window of opportunity for local attackers to exploit the system.
The technical root cause of this vulnerability lies in the improper handling of user sessions within the Tivoli Storage Manager Operations Center environment. When users authenticate to the system, their sessions should be terminated after a predefined period of inactivity or when explicitly logged out. However, the flaw allows authenticated sessions to persist indefinitely or for extended periods beyond normal operational requirements. This occurs due to inadequate session validation mechanisms and failure to implement proper timeout enforcement. The vulnerability essentially creates a persistent access vector that remains valid even when legitimate users have stepped away from their workstations, particularly in shared or multi-user environments where physical access to systems may be compromised.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses significant risks to organizations relying on Tivoli Storage Manager Operations Center for their storage management infrastructure. A local attacker with physical access to a system running the operations center could exploit this weakness to assume the identity of previously logged-in users without requiring additional authentication credentials. This type of privilege escalation can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive storage configurations, data manipulation, system modifications, and potentially broader network access depending on the privileges assigned to the compromised user accounts. The impact extends beyond simple unauthorized access as it can facilitate more sophisticated attacks such as data exfiltration, system compromise, or disruption of storage operations.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-613, which addresses inadequate session management and insufficient session expiration mechanisms, and represents a clear violation of secure session handling principles. From an adversarial perspective, this flaw maps to ATT&CK technique T1563.002, which covers "Remote Service Sessions" and can be leveraged for privilege escalation and lateral movement within the storage management environment. Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including applying the vendor-provided security patches, configuring proper session timeout values, implementing strict access controls, and monitoring for unauthorized session activity. Additionally, system administrators should consider implementing additional security controls such as automatic session termination, enhanced logging of session events, and regular security assessments to prevent exploitation of this vulnerability and maintain the integrity of their storage management infrastructure.