CVE-2018-1801 in App Connect
Summary
by MITRE
IBM App Connect V11.0.0.0 through V11.0.0.1, IBM Integration Bus V10.0.0.0 through V10.0.0.13, IBM Integration Bus V9.0.0.0 through V9.0.0.10, and WebSphere Message Broker V8.0.0.0 through V8.0.0.9 is vulnerable to a XML External Entity Injection (XXE) attack when processing XML data. A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to consume memory resources. IBM X-Force ID: 149639.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/04/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-1801 represents a critical XML External Entity Injection flaw affecting multiple IBM integration products including App Connect V11.0.0.0 through V11.0.0.1, IBM Integration Bus V10.0.0.0 through V10.0.0.13, IBM Integration Bus V9.0.0.0 through V9.0.0.10, and WebSphere Message Broker V8.0.0.0 through V8.0.0.9. This vulnerability falls under the Common Weakness Enumeration category CWE-611, which specifically addresses improper restriction of XML external entity references. The flaw occurs when these systems process XML data without proper validation and sanitization of external entity declarations, creating an attack surface that allows malicious actors to manipulate how XML documents are parsed.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability enables a remote attacker to construct malicious XML payloads that reference external entities, potentially causing the system to fetch resources from external servers or perform internal operations that consume excessive memory resources. When these integration platforms process XML documents containing crafted external entity references, they may inadvertently dereference these entities, leading to resource exhaustion attacks that can result in denial of service conditions. The vulnerability is particularly dangerous in enterprise integration environments where these systems handle sensitive business data and maintain connections to multiple internal and external systems, making the potential impact far-reaching.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses significant risks to organizations relying on these IBM integration products as they may experience service disruption, performance degradation, or complete system unavailability. The memory consumption aspect of this vulnerability means that attackers can potentially cause systems to crash or become unresponsive through carefully crafted XML payloads that trigger excessive resource allocation. Attackers leveraging this vulnerability can exploit the XXE weakness to perform reconnaissance, extract sensitive data from internal systems, or create persistent denial of service conditions that can severely impact business operations and data processing workflows.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including updating to the latest available patches from IBM, which address the XML parsing validation issues in these integration platforms. Additional defensive measures should include implementing strict XML validation policies, disabling external entity processing in XML parsers, and configuring network segmentation to limit access to these integration systems. Security teams should also consider implementing intrusion detection systems that can identify suspicious XML traffic patterns and establish monitoring protocols to detect potential exploitation attempts. The vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1213.002 for data from information repositories and T1499.004 for network denial of service, making it a critical concern for enterprise security operations centers that must protect against both internal and external threats targeting integration infrastructure.