CVE-2018-20728 in NeDi
Summary
by MITRE
A cross site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in NeDi before 1.7Cp3 allows remote attackers to escalate privileges via User-Management.php.
Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/02/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-20728 represents a critical cross site request forgery flaw in the NeDi network discovery and monitoring tool prior to version 1.7Cp3. This vulnerability resides within the User-Management.php component of the application, which handles administrative user management functions. The flaw enables remote attackers to manipulate the application's authentication and authorization mechanisms through carefully crafted malicious requests that exploit the absence of proper CSRF protection measures. The vulnerability specifically targets the privilege escalation capabilities of the application, allowing unauthorized actors to gain elevated access rights within the network monitoring environment. This represents a significant security weakness as it directly undermines the integrity of user management operations and could lead to complete system compromise.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from the application's failure to validate the origin of requests made to the User-Management.php endpoint. When legitimate administrative users perform actions such as creating new user accounts, modifying existing user permissions, or changing administrative credentials, the application does not require a valid CSRF token to be submitted along with these requests. This absence of token validation creates a window where attackers can construct malicious web pages or email attachments that automatically submit requests to the vulnerable NeDi application when unsuspecting administrators visit these pages. The vulnerability falls under CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery weaknesses in software applications. The flaw demonstrates poor input validation and insufficient request origin verification, which are fundamental security controls that should be implemented to prevent unauthorized actions from being executed on behalf of authenticated users.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple privilege escalation to encompass potential complete system compromise and unauthorized network access. An attacker exploiting this vulnerability could create new administrator accounts, modify existing user permissions, or even disable security features within the NeDi environment. This capability is particularly dangerous in network monitoring contexts where NeDi systems often have access to sensitive network information and may serve as central points for network management operations. The vulnerability affects organizations that rely on NeDi for network discovery, monitoring, and management, potentially exposing their network infrastructure to unauthorized access and manipulation. The impact is amplified by the fact that network administrators frequently interact with web-based management interfaces, making them susceptible to social engineering attacks that leverage this CSRF flaw. According to ATT&CK framework, this vulnerability maps to T1078 which covers Valid Accounts and T1531 which addresses Account Access Removal, as attackers can manipulate user accounts and potentially gain persistence within the network environment.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2018-20728 require immediate implementation of proper CSRF protection mechanisms within the NeDi application. Organizations should upgrade to version 1.7Cp3 or later, which includes the necessary CSRF token validation and request origin verification. The implementation should follow established security best practices including the use of anti-CSRF tokens that are generated per session and validated on each request. Additionally, organizations should implement proper input validation and request origin checking to ensure that all administrative operations are performed only from legitimate sources. Network segmentation and monitoring should be enhanced to detect unusual administrative activities that might indicate exploitation attempts. Security awareness training for network administrators should include education about CSRF attacks and the importance of verifying request origins when performing administrative tasks. Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should be conducted to identify similar weaknesses in other network management tools and applications that may be vulnerable to similar CSRF attacks. The fix should also include logging and alerting mechanisms that can detect unauthorized privilege escalation attempts and provide immediate notification to security teams for incident response activities.