CVE-2018-1442 in Application Performance Management
Summary
by MITRE
IBM Application Performance Management - Response Time Monitoring Agent (IBM Monitoring 8.1.4) is vulnerable to cross-site request forgery which could allow an attacker to execute malicious and unauthorized actions transmitted from a user that the website trusts. IBM X-Force ID: 139598.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/17/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-1442 affects IBM Application Performance Management Response Time Monitoring Agent version 8.1.4, specifically within the IBM Monitoring 8.1.4 framework. This cross-site request forgery vulnerability represents a critical security flaw that undermines the integrity of the web-based management interfaces used for performance monitoring. The affected system operates as a monitoring agent that collects and reports application performance data, making it a potential target for attackers seeking to compromise monitoring infrastructure. The vulnerability arises from insufficient validation of incoming requests, allowing malicious actors to manipulate the system through forged requests that appear to originate from legitimate authenticated users.
Cross-site request forgery attacks exploit the trust relationship between a web application and its users by tricking authenticated users into executing unintended actions. In this case, the monitoring agent's web interface fails to properly validate the origin of requests, enabling attackers to craft malicious requests that leverage the victim's authenticated session. The vulnerability specifically impacts the response time monitoring functionality, which could allow an attacker to modify monitoring configurations, alter performance data, or potentially disrupt the monitoring process itself. This weakness is particularly dangerous in enterprise environments where monitoring agents are often deployed with elevated privileges and access to sensitive operational data.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple unauthorized access, as it can compromise the integrity of the entire monitoring ecosystem. Attackers could potentially manipulate performance metrics, disable monitoring capabilities, or redirect monitoring data to malicious endpoints. This could result in false security alerts, missed genuine security incidents, or complete disruption of application performance monitoring services. The consequences are particularly severe for organizations relying on accurate performance data for operational decision-making and incident response. From a compliance perspective, this vulnerability could lead to violations of security standards that require integrity protection for monitoring systems and audit trails.
Organizations should implement multiple layers of defense to address this vulnerability, beginning with immediate patching of affected systems to the latest IBM Application Performance Management releases. Network segmentation and access controls should be strengthened to limit exposure of monitoring interfaces to untrusted networks. The implementation of anti-CSRF tokens and proper request validation mechanisms should be enforced across all web interfaces. According to CWE standards, this vulnerability maps to CWE-352 which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses, while ATT&CK framework categorizes this under T1071.004 for Application Layer Protocol and T1566 for Phishing techniques. Additional mitigations include regular security assessments of monitoring interfaces, implementation of web application firewalls, and enhanced monitoring for suspicious authentication patterns that could indicate CSRF attack attempts.