CVE-2017-3591 in WebCenter Sites
Summary
by MITRE
Vulnerability in the Oracle WebCenter Sites component of Oracle Fusion Middleware (subcomponent: Catalog Mover). Supported versions that are affected are 11.1.1.8.0, 12.2.1.0.0, 12.2.1.1.0 and 12.2.1.2.0. Easily "exploitable" vulnerability allows unauthenticated attacker with network access via HTTP to compromise Oracle WebCenter Sites. Successful attacks require human interaction from a person other than the attacker. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized creation, deletion or modification access to critical data or all Oracle WebCenter Sites accessible data as well as unauthorized read access to a subset of Oracle WebCenter Sites accessible data. CVSS 3.0 Base Score 7.1 (Confidentiality and Integrity impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N).
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/01/2022
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2017-3591 resides within Oracle WebCenter Sites, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware that serves as a content management and digital asset management platform. This specific flaw manifests in the Catalog Mover subcomponent, which is responsible for managing content migration and catalog operations within the WebCenter Sites environment. The affected versions span across multiple release lines including 11.1.1.8.0, 12.2.1.0.0, 12.2.1.1.0, and 12.2.1.2.0, indicating this weakness has persisted across several generations of the software. The vulnerability's classification as easily exploitable underscores its accessibility to attackers without requiring specialized tools or extensive technical knowledge, making it particularly concerning for organizations operating these systems.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from insufficient authentication and authorization controls within the Catalog Mover functionality, allowing unauthenticated attackers to leverage HTTP network connections to compromise the targeted Oracle WebCenter Sites instance. This represents a fundamental breakdown in the security model where the system fails to properly validate user credentials or session integrity before granting access to sensitive operations. The CVSS 3.0 scoring of 7.1 reflects the severity of potential impacts, with a base score indicating high integrity impact and moderate confidentiality impact, suggesting that while the primary threat involves data modification rather than complete data disclosure, the consequences remain substantial. The vulnerability requires human interaction from users other than the attacker, implying that initial access might occur through social engineering or user compromise, but once established, the attacker can leverage the system's weaknesses without additional user involvement.
The operational impact of successful exploitation encompasses significant data integrity and confidentiality risks, enabling attackers to perform unauthorized creation, deletion, or modification operations against all accessible Oracle WebCenter Sites data. This capability allows for complete disruption of content management operations and potential data corruption that could severely impact business continuity and brand integrity. Additionally, the vulnerability permits unauthorized read access to subsets of accessible data, potentially exposing sensitive content, intellectual property, or confidential business information. The combination of these impacts places organizations at risk of both operational disruption and potential regulatory compliance violations, particularly in industries where content management systems house sensitive or regulated data. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-287, which addresses improper authentication issues, and maps to ATT&CK technique T1078 for valid accounts and T1484 for data manipulation, reflecting the attack patterns commonly associated with such privilege escalation vulnerabilities.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including network segmentation to limit access to WebCenter Sites components, deployment of web application firewalls to monitor and filter HTTP traffic, and implementation of robust monitoring solutions to detect unauthorized access attempts. The recommended approach involves applying Oracle's security patches as soon as available, while also considering temporary network-level restrictions to limit exposure. Security teams should conduct comprehensive assessments of their WebCenter Sites environments to identify all instances and ensure proper access controls are implemented, including disabling unnecessary services and implementing principle of least privilege for all user accounts. Regular security audits and vulnerability assessments should be performed to identify similar weaknesses in other Oracle Fusion Middleware components and ensure that the security posture remains resilient against evolving attack vectors that may target similar authentication bypass vulnerabilities.