CVE-2019-11554 in Audible App
Summary
by MITRE
The Audible application through 2.34.0 for Android has Missing SSL Certificate Validation, allowing MITM attackers to cause a denial of service.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/07/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2019-11554 affects the Audible application version 2.34.0 and earlier on the Android platform, representing a critical security flaw in the application's network communication protocols. This issue stems from the application's failure to properly validate SSL certificates during secure communications, creating a significant attack surface that adversaries can exploit to compromise the application's integrity. The vulnerability specifically impacts the application's ability to establish secure connections with its backend services, leaving users exposed to various malicious activities.
The technical root cause of this vulnerability lies in the application's improper implementation of SSL/TLS certificate validation mechanisms within its Android runtime environment. When the Audible application attempts to establish secure connections to its servers, it fails to perform adequate certificate chain validation, hostname verification, or trust anchor checking. This weakness allows attackers positioned within the network traffic path to perform man-in-the-middle attacks by presenting fraudulent certificates that the application accepts without proper verification. The flaw operates at the transport layer security implementation level, specifically violating established security protocols that should ensure the authenticity and integrity of network communications.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability creates substantial risks for both end users and the application developers. Attackers can exploit this weakness to intercept and manipulate communications between the mobile application and Audible's servers, potentially leading to unauthorized access to user accounts, theft of personal information, or disruption of service availability. The denial of service aspect of this vulnerability means that legitimate users may experience service interruption when attackers deliberately exploit the certificate validation bypass to disrupt normal application functionality. The impact extends beyond simple service disruption to include potential data breaches and user privacy violations that could compromise sensitive user information.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-295, which addresses improper certificate validation in security protocols, and represents a clear violation of security best practices for mobile application development. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this weakness maps to techniques involving network sniffing and man-in-the-middle attacks, specifically T1046 for network service scanning and T1566 for credential access through phishing or network manipulation. Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including certificate pinning, proper SSL validation implementation, and comprehensive network monitoring to detect potential exploitation attempts. The remediation process requires thorough code review of all network communication components, implementation of proper certificate validation routines, and deployment of updated application versions that address the fundamental SSL validation flaw. Additionally, security teams should establish continuous monitoring protocols to detect anomalous network traffic patterns that may indicate exploitation attempts against this vulnerability.