CVE-2018-6492 in Network Automation
Summary
by MITRE
Persistent Cross-Site Scripting, and non-persistent HTML Injection in HP Network Operations Management Ultimate, version 2017.07, 2017.11, 2018.02 and in Network Automation, version 10.00, 10.10, 10.11, 10.20, 10.30, 10.40, 10.50. This vulnerability could be remotely exploited to allow persistent cross-site scripting, and non-persistent HTML Injection.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/13/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-6492 represents a critical security flaw affecting HP Network Operations Management Ultimate and Network Automation products across multiple versions. This issue manifests as both persistent cross-site scripting and non-persistent HTML injection vulnerabilities, creating significant risks for organizations relying on these network management systems. The vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and output encoding mechanisms within the web interfaces of these products, allowing malicious actors to inject malicious scripts that can execute in the context of other users' browsers.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability involves the improper handling of user-supplied data within the web application's input processing pipeline. When users submit data through various interface elements such as forms, search fields, or configuration parameters, the application fails to adequately sanitize or encode this input before displaying it back to users. This weakness creates two distinct attack vectors: persistent cross-site scripting occurs when malicious code is stored on the server and subsequently delivered to multiple users, while non-persistent HTML injection happens when malicious content is immediately executed in the user's browser without being stored. The vulnerability affects the web-based management interfaces of these network operations tools, making them susceptible to exploitation by remote attackers who do not require authentication to initiate attacks.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability poses severe risks to network security and organizational integrity. Attackers can leverage these flaws to steal session cookies, perform unauthorized administrative actions, redirect users to malicious websites, or execute arbitrary code within the victim's browser context. The persistent nature of the vulnerability means that once exploited, malicious scripts can affect multiple users over extended periods, potentially leading to prolonged unauthorized access to network management systems. This could result in complete compromise of network operations, data exfiltration, and disruption of critical network services. Organizations using these products face potential regulatory compliance violations and significant reputational damage if such attacks are successfully executed against their infrastructure.
Security practitioners should implement immediate mitigations including applying the vendor-provided patches and updates released for these vulnerable versions. Network segmentation and monitoring of web traffic can help detect exploitation attempts, while implementing proper input validation and output encoding mechanisms at the application level provides defense-in-depth. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-79 (Cross-site Scripting) and CWE-116 (Improper Encoding or Escaping of Output) classifications, and maps to ATT&CK techniques including T1059.007 (Command and Scripting Interpreter: JavaScript) and T1566 (Phishing) for initial access vectors. Organizations should also consider implementing web application firewalls and regular security assessments to identify similar vulnerabilities in their network management infrastructure and ensure proper input sanitization across all web-facing applications.