CVE-2016-9706 in Integration Bus
Summary
by MITRE
IBM Integration Bus 9.0 and 10.0 and WebSphere Message Broker SOAP FLOWS is vulnerable to a denial of service, caused by an XML External Entity Injection (XXE) error when processing XML data. A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to expose highly sensitive information or consume all available memory resources. IBM Reference #: 1997918.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/15/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2016-9706 affects IBM Integration Bus versions 9.0 and 10.0 along with WebSphere Message Broker SOAP FLOWS, representing a critical security flaw that exposes organizations to significant operational risks. This vulnerability stems from an XML External Entity Injection (XXE) error that occurs during the processing of XML data within the messaging infrastructure. The flaw exists in the way these systems handle XML parsing operations, particularly when processing SOAP messages that contain external entity references, creating a pathway for malicious actors to manipulate the system's behavior through crafted XML input.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability allows a remote attacker to exploit the XML processing capabilities by injecting malicious external entities into the XML data stream. When the system processes these specially crafted XML documents, it attempts to resolve external entity references, which can lead to information disclosure through the retrieval of sensitive files from the server's file system or network resources. Additionally, the vulnerability enables attackers to consume excessive system resources, potentially leading to complete denial of service conditions that can bring critical business processes to a halt.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption, as it can result in unauthorized data access and system resource exhaustion. Attackers can leverage the XXE vulnerability to access confidential information stored within the system's file system, potentially including authentication credentials, business data, or system configuration details. The memory consumption aspect of this vulnerability can cause the affected systems to become unresponsive or crash entirely, creating cascading failures that impact downstream applications and services that depend on the messaging infrastructure.
Organizations should implement multiple layers of defense to mitigate this vulnerability, starting with immediate patching of affected systems to address the XXE processing flaw. Network segmentation and firewall rules should be configured to limit access to the affected components, while input validation mechanisms should be strengthened to reject malformed XML data before it reaches the processing engine. The implementation of XML parser configurations that disable external entity resolution and DTD processing represents a fundamental defensive measure that aligns with industry best practices for XXE mitigation. This vulnerability directly maps to CWE-611 (Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference) and can be leveraged by threat actors following ATT&CK technique T1213.002 (Data from Information Repositories) for information gathering and T1499.004 (Endpoint Denial of Service) for service disruption attacks.