CVE-2017-4978 in RSA Adaptive Authentication On-Premise
Summary
by MITRE
EMC RSA Adaptive Authentication (On-Premise) versions prior to 7.3 P2 (exclusive) contains a fix for a cross-site scripting vulnerability that could potentially be exploited by malicious users to compromise the affected system.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/23/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2017-4978 affects EMC RSA Adaptive Authentication On-Premise solutions running versions earlier than 7.3 Patch 2. This authentication platform serves as a critical security component for enterprise environments, providing adaptive authentication capabilities that evaluate user risk and enforce security policies based on behavioral analytics and threat intelligence. The affected system operates as a centralized authentication gateway that processes user credentials and security events across multiple applications and services within an organization's infrastructure.
The technical flaw manifests as a cross-site scripting vulnerability within the web interface of the RSA Adaptive Authentication platform. This weakness allows malicious actors to inject malicious scripts into web pages viewed by legitimate users, potentially enabling unauthorized access to sensitive authentication data and system functionality. The vulnerability specifically impacts the input validation mechanisms that process user-supplied data within the web application's user interface components. According to CWE classification, this represents a classic cross-site scripting weakness categorized under CWE-79, which occurs when web applications fail to properly validate or escape user-controllable input before incorporating it into dynamically generated HTML content. The vulnerability's exploitation potential is heightened by the privileged nature of the authentication system, as successful exploitation could provide attackers with access to authentication tokens, user credentials, and administrative controls within the platform.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple script injection, as it could enable attackers to escalate privileges within the authentication system and potentially gain unauthorized access to protected applications and services. An attacker could craft malicious payloads that exploit the XSS vulnerability to steal session cookies, redirect users to malicious sites, or execute unauthorized administrative commands within the RSA Adaptive Authentication environment. This threat is particularly concerning given that the platform typically serves as a central security control for enterprise authentication, making it a prime target for attackers seeking to establish persistent access within organizational networks. The vulnerability could also facilitate credential theft and session hijacking attacks, potentially compromising the security of multiple downstream systems that rely on the RSA Adaptive Authentication platform for access control.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should immediately implement the remediation measures provided in EMC RSA Adaptive Authentication version 7.3 Patch 2, which includes enhanced input validation and output encoding mechanisms to prevent malicious script injection. The patch addresses the underlying XSS vulnerability by implementing proper sanitization of user inputs and ensuring that all dynamic content generated by the web interface properly escapes potentially dangerous characters. Security teams should also consider implementing additional monitoring and detection measures to identify potential exploitation attempts, including web application firewall rules specifically designed to detect XSS attack patterns and behavioral analytics that monitor for unusual authentication activity. According to ATT&CK framework, this vulnerability maps to techniques involving credential access and privilege escalation, with potential lateral movement opportunities through compromised authentication sessions. Organizations should also conduct comprehensive security assessments of their authentication infrastructure and review access controls to ensure that any potential exploitation has been properly mitigated. The incident highlights the critical importance of maintaining current security patches for authentication systems and implementing defense-in-depth strategies that protect against both known and emerging threats targeting core security infrastructure components.