CVE-2017-14993 in eShop Community Edition
Summary
by MITRE
OXID eShop Community Edition before 6.0.0 RC3 (development), 4.10.x before 4.10.6 (maintenance), and 4.9.x before 4.9.11 (legacy), Enterprise Edition before 6.0.0 RC3 (development), 5.2.x before 5.2.11 (legacy), and 5.3.x before 5.3.6 (maintenance), and Professional Edition before 6.0.0 RC3 (development), 4.9.x before 4.9.11 (legacy) and 4.10.x before 4.10.6 (maintenance) allow remote attackers to crawl specially crafted URLs (aka "forced browsing") in order to overflow the database of the shop and consequently make it stop working. Prerequisite: the shop allows rendering empty categories to the storefront via an admin option.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/07/2020
The vulnerability described in CVE-2017-14993 represents a critical forced browsing issue affecting multiple versions of the OXID eShop platform across its community, enterprise, and professional editions. This vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and access control mechanisms within the eShop's URL handling system, allowing remote attackers to craft malicious URLs that can trigger database overflow conditions. The flaw specifically manifests when the eShop's administrative configuration permits the rendering of empty categories to the storefront, creating an exploitable condition that can be leveraged by attackers to disrupt service availability. The vulnerability falls under the category of CWE-200 Information Exposure and CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption, as it enables attackers to exhaust database resources through carefully constructed URL parameters that bypass normal access controls and validation checks.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability exploits the eShop's URL routing system by constructing specially crafted URLs that force the application to process empty or invalid category data. When the application attempts to render these forced categories, it generates database queries that can accumulate and eventually overflow database resources, leading to complete service disruption. The attack vector is particularly dangerous because it requires minimal privileges and can be executed remotely without authentication, making it an attractive target for denial-of-service attacks. The prerequisite configuration element of allowing empty categories to be rendered to the storefront creates an opening that attackers can exploit, as the system does not properly validate whether the requested category data should be accessible or if the URL parameters constitute legitimate navigation.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially compromise the entire eShop infrastructure. Database overflow conditions can lead to complete system unavailability, data corruption, or even allow attackers to gain additional insights into the application's internal structure and database schema. The vulnerability affects multiple release branches simultaneously, indicating a fundamental flaw in the URL handling and access control mechanisms that spans across different product lines and version streams. Organizations running affected eShop versions face significant risk of operational downtime, customer experience degradation, and potential data integrity issues that could result in financial losses and reputational damage.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability should focus on implementing robust input validation and access control measures within the eShop's URL routing system. The immediate recommendation involves updating to the patched versions of OXID eShop, specifically versions 6.0.0 RC3, 4.10.6, 4.9.11, 5.2.11, 5.3.6, and their respective maintenance releases. Administrators should also disable the rendering of empty categories to the storefront when this feature is not required, effectively closing the attack surface. Additional defensive measures include implementing rate limiting on URL access patterns, monitoring database resource consumption for unusual spikes, and configuring web application firewalls to detect and block suspicious URL patterns. From an ATT&CK perspective, this vulnerability maps to T1499 Network Denial of Service and T1071.004 Application Layer Protocol, as it leverages HTTP protocol handling to execute denial-of-service attacks against the application layer. The vulnerability demonstrates the importance of proper access control implementation and input validation, as highlighted in security frameworks such as the OWASP Top Ten and NIST Cybersecurity Framework, where inadequate access controls and insufficient input validation are consistently identified as critical security weaknesses.