CVE-2018-6288 in Secure Mail Gateway
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site Request Forgery leading to Administrative account takeover in Kaspersky Secure Mail Gateway version 1.1.
Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/02/2021
The CVE-2018-6288 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw that enables unauthorized administrative account takeover within Kaspersky Secure Mail Gateway version 1.1. This vulnerability resides in the web-based management interface of the security appliance, which is designed to protect email communications through advanced threat detection and filtering mechanisms. The flaw specifically affects the authentication and session management components that govern administrative access to the system's configuration and control interfaces. Given that this is a mail gateway solution, the potential impact extends beyond simple privilege escalation to encompass complete compromise of email security infrastructure, making it particularly concerning for enterprise environments that rely on such protective measures.
The technical implementation of this CSRF vulnerability stems from the absence of proper anti-CSRF tokens in critical administrative operations within the web interface. When administrators perform actions such as changing user permissions, modifying security policies, or accessing sensitive configuration settings, the application fails to validate that requests originate from legitimate authenticated sessions. This omission creates a scenario where malicious actors can craft specially formatted requests that, when executed by authenticated administrators, result in unauthorized actions being performed on their behalf. The vulnerability operates through the exploitation of the browser's automatic handling of cookies and session information, where the application assumes that any request containing valid session cookies represents an authorized action. This design flaw directly aligns with CWE-352, which categorizes cross-site request forgery vulnerabilities as weaknesses that permit unauthorized commands to be executed on behalf of authenticated users. The attack vector requires minimal sophistication as it leverages existing session cookies and does not require authentication credentials for the initial exploitation phase.
The operational impact of CVE-2018-6288 extends far beyond simple administrative privilege escalation, as it allows threat actors to assume complete control over the email security infrastructure. Once an attacker successfully exploits this vulnerability, they gain the ability to modify email filtering rules, create new administrative accounts, disable security features, and potentially access or exfiltrate sensitive email communications passing through the gateway. The compromised system could be used to relay spam, conduct phishing attacks, or serve as a pivot point for further network infiltration. Organizations relying on Kaspersky Secure Mail Gateway for email protection face significant risk of data breaches, regulatory violations, and loss of email security coverage. The vulnerability particularly affects enterprises with high email traffic volumes and those handling sensitive communications, where the compromise of email security can lead to substantial financial and reputational damage. This flaw demonstrates the critical importance of implementing proper session management and anti-CSRF protections in web applications handling privileged operations.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2018-6288 should prioritize immediate patch deployment from Kaspersky, as the vendor has released updates addressing this specific vulnerability. Organizations should implement network segmentation to limit direct access to the management interface, restrict administrative access through firewall rules, and ensure that administrative sessions are protected with additional authentication layers such as two-factor authentication. Security monitoring should be enhanced to detect unusual administrative activities, particularly those occurring outside normal business hours or from unexpected locations. Network administrators should also consider implementing web application firewalls to detect and block CSRF attack patterns. The vulnerability's classification under ATT&CK technique T1548.001 highlights the importance of protecting administrative access points and implementing proper session management controls. Organizations should conduct thorough security assessments of their email infrastructure and consider implementing additional logging and monitoring mechanisms to detect unauthorized administrative activities. Regular security testing and vulnerability assessments should be performed to identify similar weaknesses in other components of the email security ecosystem, ensuring comprehensive protection against similar attack vectors that could compromise email infrastructure integrity.