CVE-2016-6637 in Cloud Foundry
Summary
by MITRE
Multiple cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities in Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) before 242; UAA 2.x before 2.7.4.7, 3.x before 3.3.0.5, and 3.4.x before 3.4.4; UAA BOSH before 11.5 and 12.x before 12.5; Elastic Runtime before 1.6.40, 1.7.x before 1.7.21, and 1.8.x before 1.8.2; and Ops Manager 1.7.x before 1.7.13 and 1.8.x before 1.8.1 allow remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified victims for requests that approve or deny a scope via a profile or authorize approval page.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/02/2026
The CVE-2016-6637 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw affecting multiple components within the Pivotal Cloud Foundry ecosystem. This vulnerability specifically targets the User Account and Authentication (UAA) service and related components including Elastic Runtime and Ops Manager, creating a significant attack surface for remote threat actors seeking to compromise authenticated sessions. The flaw exists in versions prior to the specified patches, with particular attention required for UAA versions 2.x before 2.7.4.7, 3.x before 3.3.0.5, and 3.4.x before 3.4.4, along with corresponding BOSH versions and Elastic Runtime releases. The vulnerability operates by enabling attackers to manipulate authentication workflows through forged requests that approve or deny scope permissions via profile or authorization approval pages.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from the absence of proper anti-CSRF mechanisms within the authentication approval workflows. When users navigate to profile or authorization approval pages within the PCF environment, the system fails to validate that requests originate from legitimate user interactions rather than maliciously crafted requests. This allows attackers to construct specially crafted web pages or exploit existing user sessions to perform unauthorized actions on behalf of authenticated users. The vulnerability specifically impacts the scope approval functionality, which is fundamental to the authorization process in cloud environments where users must consent to granting permissions to applications or services. The flaw operates at the application layer and leverages the trust relationship between the user's browser and the authenticated PCF services, making it particularly dangerous in multi-tenant cloud environments where privilege escalation could lead to unauthorized access to sensitive data and system resources.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple session hijacking, as it can enable attackers to escalate privileges and gain unauthorized access to cloud resources within the PCF environment. Attackers can exploit this vulnerability to approve or deny arbitrary scope requests, potentially allowing them to grant themselves elevated permissions or manipulate user access controls. This represents a significant threat to the principle of least privilege that is fundamental to cloud security architectures, as successful exploitation could allow attackers to move laterally within the cloud infrastructure and access sensitive applications, data, and system configurations. The vulnerability affects the core authentication and authorization mechanisms that protect cloud platform resources, making it particularly dangerous for organizations relying on PCF for mission-critical applications and services. The impact is amplified in environments where multiple users interact with the platform and where automated approval workflows are in place, as attackers could potentially exploit this vulnerability at scale.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including applying the vendor-provided patches for all affected components, specifically upgrading to UAA versions 2.7.4.7, 3.3.0.5, and 3.4.4, along with corresponding versions of Elastic Runtime and Ops Manager. The implementation of proper anti-CSRF token mechanisms within authentication workflows should be enforced across all profile and authorization approval pages. Network segmentation and monitoring should be enhanced to detect suspicious authentication-related activities, while security teams should conduct comprehensive vulnerability assessments of their PCF environments to identify any potential exploitation attempts. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery, and represents a technique that falls under ATT&CK tactic TA0001 (Initial Access) and technique T1190 (Exploit Public-Facing Application), making it a critical target for security teams implementing defense-in-depth strategies. Regular security audits of authentication mechanisms and user session management should be conducted to prevent similar vulnerabilities from emerging in the future, particularly focusing on the validation of request origins and the implementation of robust session management controls within cloud-native applications.