CVE-2018-2956 in Hospitality OPERA 5 Property Services
Summary
by MITRE
Vulnerability in the Oracle Hospitality OPERA 5 Property Services component of Oracle Hospitality Applications (subcomponent: Integration). The supported version that is affected is 5.5.x. Difficult to exploit vulnerability allows unauthenticated attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle Hospitality OPERA 5 Property Services executes to compromise Oracle Hospitality OPERA 5 Property Services. While the vulnerability is in Oracle Hospitality OPERA 5 Property Services, attacks may significantly impact additional products. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in takeover of Oracle Hospitality OPERA 5 Property Services. CVSS 3.0 Base Score 8.1 (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H).
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/17/2023
The vulnerability described in CVE-2018-2956 represents a critical security flaw within Oracle Hospitality OPERA 5 Property Services component that resides within the broader Oracle Hospitality Applications ecosystem. This specific vulnerability manifests within the Integration subcomponent of the OPERA 5 Property Services, which serves as a crucial middleware layer for hospitality operations management. The affected version 5.5.x demonstrates that this weakness has persisted across multiple iterations of the software, indicating a fundamental architectural or implementation issue that requires immediate attention. The vulnerability's classification as difficult to exploit suggests that while the attack vector is not trivial, it remains within the realm of practical threat exploitation given the right conditions and access to the target infrastructure.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from insufficient authentication mechanisms within the Oracle Hospitality OPERA 5 Property Services environment, allowing an attacker who already possesses legitimate login credentials to the underlying infrastructure to escalate their privileges and compromise the targeted service. This particular weakness creates a significant attack surface where an authenticated user with minimal privileges can potentially gain complete control over the property services component. The CVSS 3.0 score of 8.1 reflects the high severity impact across all three core security principles, indicating that successful exploitation could result in complete loss of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the affected system. The vector analysis shows AV:L (local access), AC:H (high attack complexity), PR:N (no privilege required), and UI:N (no user interaction), suggesting that the attack requires physical or network access to the target environment but does not need sophisticated social engineering or additional privilege escalation techniques.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends far beyond the immediate compromise of Oracle Hospitality OPERA 5 Property Services, as the attack can potentially cascade to affect additional products within the Oracle Hospitality ecosystem. This interconnectedness demonstrates the critical nature of the vulnerability, as a single point of compromise can lead to widespread disruption of hospitality operations including guest management, reservation systems, financial transactions, and property management functions. The potential for complete takeover of the property services component means that attackers could manipulate guest data, alter reservation records, access sensitive financial information, and potentially disrupt business continuity operations. Organizations utilizing this software face significant risk of data breaches, financial losses, and reputational damage if this vulnerability remains unpatched, particularly given that the attack requires only infrastructure-level access rather than complex exploitation techniques.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigation strategies including comprehensive network segmentation to isolate the affected systems, enhanced monitoring of authentication events, and strict access controls for infrastructure components running Oracle Hospitality OPERA 5 Property Services. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-287 (Improper Authentication) and potentially CWE-312 (Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information) if sensitive data is improperly handled within the affected service. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to T1078 (Valid Accounts) and T1499 (Endpoint Denial of Service) as attackers could leverage legitimate credentials to gain access and potentially disrupt services. Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should be implemented to identify similar weaknesses in related systems, while patch management processes must be prioritized to ensure timely deployment of Oracle's security updates. The complexity of this vulnerability underscores the importance of maintaining robust security hygiene practices and implementing defense-in-depth strategies to protect against both known and emerging threats targeting hospitality management systems.