CVE-2018-12414 in RendezVous
Summary
by MITRE
The Rendezvous Routing Daemon (rvrd), Rendezvous Secure Routing Daemon (rvrsd), Rendezvous Secure Daemon (rvsd), Rendezvous Cache (rvcache), and Rendezvous Daemon Manager (rvdm) components of TIBCO Software Inc.'s TIBCO Rendezvous, TIBCO Rendezvous Developer Edition, TIBCO Rendezvous for z/Linux, TIBCO Rendezvous for z/OS, TIBCO Rendezvous Network Server, TIBCO Substation ES contain vulnerabilities which may allow an attacker to perform cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks. Affected releases are TIBCO Software Inc.'s TIBCO Rendezvous: versions up to and including 8.4.5, TIBCO Rendezvous Developer Edition: versions up to and including 8.4.5, TIBCO Rendezvous for z/Linux: versions up to and including 8.4.5, TIBCO Rendezvous for z/OS: versions up to and including 8.4.5, TIBCO Rendezvous Network Server: versions up to and including 1.1.2, and TIBCO Substation ES: versions up to and including 2.12.2.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/10/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-12414 affects multiple components within TIBCO Software Inc.'s Rendezvous suite, specifically targeting the Rendezvous Routing Daemon, Secure Routing Daemon, Secure Daemon, Cache, and Daemon Manager. These components form a critical part of TIBCO's messaging infrastructure used for enterprise-level communication and data exchange across distributed systems. The affected products include various versions of TIBCO Rendezvous across different platforms including mainframe environments, making this vulnerability particularly concerning for large-scale enterprise deployments where system integrity and security are paramount. The vulnerability stems from insufficient validation of cross-site request forgery tokens, which creates a pathway for unauthorized users to manipulate system operations through crafted HTTP requests that appear legitimate to the target system.
The technical flaw manifests in the lack of proper CSRF protection mechanisms within the web-based administrative interfaces of these components. When users access administrative functions through web interfaces, the system should validate that requests originate from authorized sources and contain legitimate session tokens. However, the vulnerable implementations fail to properly verify these security tokens, allowing attackers to craft malicious requests that can be executed on behalf of authenticated users. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery vulnerabilities, and represents a significant weakening of the authentication and authorization controls that should protect administrative functions. The flaw enables attackers to perform unauthorized operations including but not limited to configuration changes, data manipulation, and potentially system compromise through the execution of administrative commands without proper authorization.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple privilege escalation as it can lead to complete system compromise within the TIBCO Rendezvous environment. Attackers could potentially modify routing configurations, access sensitive data flows, manipulate message delivery, or even disrupt critical business processes that depend on reliable messaging infrastructure. Given that TIBCO Rendezvous is commonly used in financial services, healthcare, and other regulated industries, the potential for data breaches, service disruption, and compliance violations is substantial. The vulnerability affects multiple platform versions simultaneously, indicating a systemic flaw in the product's security architecture rather than isolated component issues, which means that organizations running any of the affected versions across their infrastructure are at risk. This creates a widespread exposure scenario where a single compromised administrative session could potentially affect multiple systems within an organization's messaging ecosystem.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including but not limited to enforcing strict access controls for administrative interfaces, implementing additional authentication layers, and ensuring that administrative functions are not accessible from untrusted networks. Network segmentation should be employed to isolate critical Rendezvous components from general network traffic, and all administrative interfaces should be protected by multi-factor authentication where possible. The vulnerability also highlights the importance of regular security assessments and penetration testing of messaging infrastructure components, as these systems often operate with elevated privileges and require robust security controls. Security teams should monitor for unusual administrative activities and implement logging controls that can detect unauthorized access attempts. Additionally, organizations should consider implementing web application firewalls to help detect and prevent CSRF attacks targeting the vulnerable components, while also planning for immediate upgrades to patched versions once available. The vulnerability demonstrates the critical need for security by design principles in enterprise messaging systems and reinforces the importance of maintaining up-to-date security patches across all components of complex enterprise software suites.