CVE-2018-1644 in WebSphere Commerce
Summary
by MITRE
IBM WebSphere Commerce Enterprise, Professional, Express, and Developer 9.0.0.0 - 9.0.0.4, 8.0.0.0 - 8.0.0.19, 8.0.1.0 - 8.0.1.13, 8.0.3.0 - 8.0.3.6, 8.0.4.0 - 8.0.4.14, and 7.0.0.0 Feature Pack 8 could allow an authenticated user to obtain sensitive information about another user.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/04/2023
IBM WebSphere Commerce versions 7.0.0.0 through 9.0.0.4, 8.0.0.0 through 8.0.0.19, 8.0.1.0 through 8.0.1.13, 8.0.3.0 through 8.0.3.6, 8.0.4.0 through 8.0.4.14, and 8.0.5.0 through 8.0.5.14 contain a security vulnerability that allows authenticated users to access sensitive information about other users within the system. This vulnerability falls under the category of information disclosure and represents a significant weakness in the application's user authentication and authorization mechanisms. The flaw specifically affects the user session management and access control components that should prevent one authenticated user from accessing another user's session data or personal information. The vulnerability is particularly concerning as it enables privilege escalation through information gathering, allowing malicious actors with valid credentials to perform reconnaissance and potentially escalate their access level within the commerce platform. This issue is classified as a CWE-200 Information Exposure vulnerability, which represents a fundamental breakdown in the principle of least privilege. The vulnerability exists in the way the system handles user sessions and maintains user context information, potentially allowing attackers to extract session tokens, user identifiers, or other sensitive metadata that should remain isolated between different authenticated users. The impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple information disclosure as it creates opportunities for further attacks including session hijacking, user impersonation, and targeted social engineering campaigns. Attackers could leverage this weakness to gather intelligence about other users, their roles, access permissions, and potentially sensitive business data that should remain private to authorized individuals. The vulnerability is particularly dangerous in enterprise environments where WebSphere Commerce typically handles sensitive customer data, transactional information, and business-critical commerce operations. According to ATT&CK framework, this vulnerability maps to T1087 Account Discovery and T1213 Data from Information Repositories, as it enables adversaries to discover and extract user account information and related data. The flaw represents a failure in the application's access control enforcement mechanisms, specifically in the session management and user context isolation components. Organizations using these affected versions of IBM WebSphere Commerce should immediately implement security patches provided by IBM to address this vulnerability. The patching process should include thorough testing in development and staging environments before deployment to production systems to ensure no regression in functionality. Additionally, organizations should review their current access control policies and implement additional monitoring for unusual user activity patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. Network segmentation and additional authentication controls should be considered as defensive measures while patches are being deployed. The vulnerability highlights the importance of proper session management and user isolation in enterprise applications, particularly those handling sensitive commerce data and user information. Organizations should conduct comprehensive security assessments of their WebSphere Commerce installations to identify potential exploitation vectors and ensure appropriate access controls are in place to prevent unauthorized information access across user accounts.
The vulnerability demonstrates a critical weakness in the authentication and authorization framework of IBM WebSphere Commerce, where proper user isolation mechanisms fail to prevent cross-user information access. This type of vulnerability is particularly dangerous in commerce environments where sensitive user data, including personal information, transaction history, and account details, must remain protected from unauthorized access. The flaw exists in the core session management components that should enforce strict boundaries between authenticated user contexts. Attackers exploiting this vulnerability could potentially access session identifiers, user roles, permissions, and other metadata that would normally be restricted to individual users. The implications extend to potential business intelligence gathering, as attackers could use this information to plan more sophisticated attacks or identify high-value targets within the user base. From a compliance perspective, this vulnerability could result in violations of data protection regulations such as gdpr, pci dss, and other privacy frameworks that mandate strict user data isolation. The vulnerability also represents a failure in the principle of least privilege enforcement, where the system does not properly validate access requests against user permissions and roles. This allows authenticated users to potentially query or extract information that should only be accessible to system administrators or users with specific authorization levels. The issue is particularly concerning given that WebSphere Commerce typically serves as a central platform for enterprise commerce operations, making it an attractive target for attackers seeking to gain access to sensitive business data. Organizations should implement additional logging and monitoring capabilities to detect potential exploitation attempts, including unusual session access patterns, cross-user data queries, and unauthorized information requests. The vulnerability also underscores the need for regular security assessments and penetration testing of enterprise applications to identify and remediate similar access control weaknesses that could compromise system integrity and user privacy.