CVE-2017-15918 in Sera
Summary
by MITRE
Sera 1.2 stores the user's login password in plain text in their home directory. This makes privilege escalation trivial and also exposes the user and system keychains to local attacks.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/23/2025
The vulnerability described in CVE-2017-15918 represents a critical security flaw in the Sera 1.2 software that fundamentally compromises user authentication integrity. This issue manifests through the application's improper handling of sensitive authentication credentials by storing them in plain text format within users' home directories. The vulnerability directly violates fundamental security principles regarding credential storage and access control, creating an environment where unauthorized local access can immediately escalate privileges and compromise entire system keychains. The flaw exists at the application design level, where developers failed to implement proper cryptographic measures for protecting sensitive data during storage operations.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from the application's failure to employ industry-standard encryption or hashing mechanisms for password storage. When users authenticate to the Sera 1.2 application, their credentials are written to disk without any form of cryptographic protection, making them immediately accessible to any local user or process with read permissions to the specified home directory locations. This plain text storage approach creates a direct attack vector that aligns with CWE-312 (CWE-312: Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information) and represents a fundamental failure in secure coding practices. The vulnerability operates at the file system level where authentication tokens are persisted, creating a persistent exposure that remains active until the application is properly patched or uninstalled.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends far beyond simple credential theft, as it provides attackers with immediate pathways to escalate privileges and compromise system integrity. Local attackers who gain access to the victim's account can directly read password files and leverage this information to access additional system resources, network services, and potentially other user accounts that share similar authentication mechanisms. The exposure of user keychains represents a particularly severe consequence, as these contain encrypted passwords for various services, network connections, and application-specific credentials that would otherwise remain protected. This vulnerability directly maps to ATT&CK technique T1078 (Valid Accounts) and T1548.001 (Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism) within the MITRE ATT&CK framework, demonstrating how local privilege escalation can be achieved through credential compromise.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability must address both immediate remediation and long-term architectural improvements. The most critical immediate action involves patching the application to implement proper password storage mechanisms using strong cryptographic hashing algorithms such as bcrypt, scrypt, or PBKDF2 with appropriate salt values. System administrators should conduct comprehensive audits to identify all instances of the vulnerable software and ensure that existing plain text password files are properly secured or removed. The implementation of proper access controls through file system permissions and mandatory access controls can help limit exposure, though these measures provide only partial protection against determined attackers. Additionally, organizations should implement monitoring solutions to detect unauthorized access to sensitive directories and establish incident response procedures to address potential compromise scenarios. The vulnerability highlights the importance of following security best practices such as the principle of least privilege, secure configuration management, and regular security assessments to prevent similar issues from occurring in other applications and systems.