CVE-2019-0240 in Business Objects Mobile
Summary
by MITRE
SAP Business Objects Mobile for Android (before 6.3.5) application allows an attacker to provide malicious input in the form of a SAP BI link, preventing legitimate users from accessing the application by crashing it.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/26/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2019-0240 affects SAP Business Objects Mobile for Android applications prior to version 6.3.5, representing a critical security flaw that undermines application availability and user access. This weakness stems from insufficient input validation mechanisms within the mobile application's processing of SAP BI links, creating a pathway for malicious actors to disrupt legitimate user operations through carefully crafted input sequences. The vulnerability specifically targets the application's handling of external links, where unvalidated user-supplied data can trigger unexpected application behavior leading to complete service disruption.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability resides in the application's failure to properly sanitize and validate external link inputs received through the SAP BI protocol. When a malicious user provides a specially crafted SAP BI link, the application processes this input without adequate security checks, resulting in a crash condition that terminates the application process. This behavior manifests as an application crash or freeze, effectively preventing legitimate users from accessing the mobile application until the service is manually restarted. The flaw operates at the input validation layer, where the application assumes all external links are safe and executable without proper verification of their content or structure.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability creates significant business disruption for organizations relying on SAP Business Objects Mobile for Android as their primary mobile reporting solution. The crash condition affects availability and can be exploited by adversaries to perform denial-of-service attacks against the application, potentially impacting decision-making processes and business operations that depend on timely access to business intelligence data. The vulnerability's exploitation requires minimal technical skill and can be executed through social engineering or automated means, making it particularly dangerous in enterprise environments where mobile access to business intelligence is critical for operational effectiveness.
Organizations can mitigate this vulnerability by upgrading to SAP Business Objects Mobile for Android version 6.3.5 or later, which includes proper input validation mechanisms and enhanced security controls for processing external links. Security teams should implement additional monitoring of application crash reports and user access patterns to detect potential exploitation attempts. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-20, which addresses "Improper Input Validation," and corresponds to ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for "Endpoint Denial of Service," emphasizing the importance of input sanitization and application resilience. Organizations should also consider implementing network-level controls to restrict access to potentially malicious links and establish incident response procedures for handling application availability issues.