CVE-2019-3761 in RSA Identity Governance
Summary
by MITRE
The RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle software and RSA Via Lifecycle and Governance products prior to 7.1.0 P08 contain a stored cross-site scripting vulnerability in the Access Request module. A remote authenticated malicious user could potentially exploit this vulnerability to store malicious HTML or JavaScript code in a trusted application data store. When victim users access the data store through their browsers, the stored malicious code would gets executed by the web browser in the context of the vulnerable web application.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/19/2023
The RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle software and RSA Via Lifecycle and Governance products prior to version 7.1.0 P08 contain a critical stored cross-site scripting vulnerability that represents a significant security risk for organizations relying on these identity management solutions. This vulnerability exists within the Access Request module of the affected products, which serves as a core component for managing user access requests and permissions within enterprise identity governance frameworks. The flaw allows malicious actors to inject persistent malicious code into the application's data storage mechanisms, creating a persistent threat that can affect multiple users over time. The vulnerability specifically impacts the web application's handling of user input within the access request functionality, where proper sanitization and validation of input data fails to prevent the storage of malicious scripts.
The technical exploitation of this stored cross-site scripting vulnerability follows a well-established attack pattern that leverages the trust relationship between the web application and its users. An authenticated attacker with access to the system can submit malicious HTML or JavaScript code through the Access Request module, which gets stored in the application's database or data store. When legitimate users subsequently access the affected data through their web browsers, the stored malicious code executes within the context of the vulnerable web application, potentially allowing the attacker to perform actions on behalf of the victim user. This vulnerability directly maps to CWE-000079, which specifically addresses cross-site scripting flaws, and demonstrates the dangerous combination of stored XSS with authentication bypass capabilities. The attack requires only a single successful injection to persist, making it particularly dangerous as the malicious code remains active until manually removed from the data store.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple script execution and represents a serious threat to enterprise security infrastructure. Organizations using affected versions of RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle products face potential risks including unauthorized access to sensitive identity data, privilege escalation attacks, session hijacking, and potential lateral movement within the network. The vulnerability's persistence means that once exploited, the malicious code continues to execute against all users who access the affected data, potentially compromising multiple user accounts and access permissions over extended periods. Security teams must consider the implications for compliance requirements and audit trails, as the presence of malicious code in trusted data stores can compromise the integrity of identity governance processes and potentially violate regulatory requirements for data protection and access control. This vulnerability particularly affects organizations that rely heavily on automated access request workflows and centralized identity management systems, where the compromise of the access request module could disrupt critical business processes.
Mitigation strategies for this stored cross-site scripting vulnerability should focus on immediate remediation through official patches provided by RSA, as well as implementing additional security controls to reduce the attack surface. Organizations should prioritize upgrading to RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle version 7.1.0 P08 or later, which contains the necessary fixes for this vulnerability. In addition to patching, security teams should implement robust input validation and output encoding mechanisms throughout the application, particularly within the Access Request module and other user input handling components. Network segmentation and privilege separation can help limit the potential impact of successful exploitation, while monitoring and logging of access request activities should be enhanced to detect unusual patterns that might indicate malicious injection attempts. The vulnerability also highlights the importance of following secure coding practices and implementing defense-in-depth strategies, as outlined in the ATT&CK framework's web application attack patterns, where stored XSS represents a common technique for establishing persistent access to web-based enterprise systems. Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should be conducted to identify similar issues in other components of the identity governance infrastructure.