CVE-2019-4186 in Jazz for Service Management
Summary
by MITRE
IBM Jazz for Service Management 1.1.3 is vulnerable to HTTP header injection, caused by incorrect trust in the HTTP Host header during caching. By sending a specially crafted HTTP GET request, a remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to inject arbitrary HTTP headers, which will allow the attacker to conduct various attacks against the vulnerable system, including cross-site scripting, cache poisoning or session hijacking. IBM X-force ID: 158976.
Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/13/2023
IBM Jazz for Service Management version 1.1.3 contains a critical HTTP header injection vulnerability that stems from improper validation of the HTTP Host header during caching operations. This flaw exists within the application's security architecture where the system incorrectly trusts and processes the Host header without adequate sanitization or validation. The vulnerability manifests when the application caches responses based on the Host header value, creating a dangerous attack surface where malicious actors can manipulate HTTP headers to inject arbitrary content into the application's response handling mechanism.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability occurs through carefully crafted HTTP GET requests that contain malicious Host header values. When the vulnerable system processes these requests, it fails to properly validate or sanitize the header input before using it in cache operations or response generation. This improper handling allows attackers to inject additional HTTP headers that can be interpreted by downstream systems or browsers, creating multiple attack vectors including cross-site scripting payloads, cache poisoning attacks, and session manipulation techniques. The vulnerability directly maps to CWE-113, which describes improper neutralization of input during web page generation, and represents a classic example of header injection flaws that have been documented in numerous security frameworks.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data corruption or unauthorized access. Attackers can leverage the injected headers to perform cache poisoning attacks that compromise the integrity of cached content across multiple users, potentially delivering malicious payloads to unsuspecting system users. Cross-site scripting attacks become possible when the injected headers contain script tags or other malicious content that gets executed in user browsers. Session hijacking becomes feasible as attackers can manipulate header values to redirect authentication tokens or session identifiers, effectively allowing them to impersonate legitimate users. This vulnerability particularly affects systems where IBM Jazz for Service Management operates as a web application serving multiple clients, as the cached responses can be manipulated to affect numerous users simultaneously.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should implement immediate mitigations including input validation and sanitization of all HTTP headers before processing, particularly the Host header. The application should be configured to reject or normalize Host header values, ensuring that any potentially malicious content is stripped or encoded before being used in cache operations. Network-level protections such as web application firewalls should be deployed to detect and block suspicious header injection patterns, while also implementing proper header validation at the application level. Regular security assessments should be conducted to identify similar header injection vulnerabilities in other components of the system, as this represents a common class of weakness that appears in various web applications. The vulnerability also highlights the importance of following secure coding practices as outlined in the OWASP Top Ten and MITRE ATT&CK framework, specifically addressing the techniques related to web application security and header manipulation attacks.