CVE-2020-4580 in DataPower Gateway
Summary
by MITRE
IBM DataPower Gateway 2018.4.1.0 through 2018.4.1.12 could allow a remote attacker to cause a denial of service by sending a specially crafted a JSON request with invalid characters. IBM X-Force ID: 184439.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/22/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2020-4580 affects IBM DataPower Gateway versions 2018.4.1.0 through 2018.4.1.12, representing a critical denial of service weakness that can be exploited remotely. This flaw specifically targets the gateway's JSON parsing functionality, where improper handling of malformed JSON requests can lead to system instability and service disruption. The vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation mechanisms within the DataPower's JSON processing engine, which fails to properly sanitize or reject malformed JSON structures containing invalid characters. Attackers can leverage this weakness by crafting malicious JSON requests that contain unexpected character sequences, triggering unexpected behavior in the gateway's processing pipeline.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability resides in the DataPower Gateway's JSON parser component, which lacks robust error handling for malformed input sequences. When processing JSON requests containing invalid characters, the system fails to gracefully handle these exceptions, leading to resource exhaustion or process termination. This behavior aligns with CWE-20, "Improper Input Validation," which specifically addresses weaknesses where applications fail to validate input data properly. The vulnerability's remote exploitation capability means that attackers do not require physical access or local credentials to trigger the denial of service condition, making it particularly dangerous in networked environments where DataPower gateways serve as critical infrastructure components for API management and security orchestration.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability can severely disrupt business continuity for organizations relying on IBM DataPower Gateway for critical API management and security services. The denial of service condition can result in complete service interruption, affecting thousands of concurrent requests and potentially causing cascading failures throughout dependent systems. Organizations may experience significant downtime while administrators work to restore services, leading to financial losses and reputational damage. The vulnerability's exploitation can be automated, allowing attackers to repeatedly trigger the condition without requiring specialized knowledge or tools beyond basic JSON crafting capabilities. This makes it particularly attractive to threat actors seeking to disrupt services or as part of larger attack campaigns targeting enterprise infrastructure.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2020-4580 should prioritize immediate patching of affected IBM DataPower Gateway versions to the latest available releases that contain fixes for the JSON parsing vulnerability. Organizations should implement network-level controls such as firewalls and intrusion prevention systems to monitor and filter suspicious JSON traffic patterns that may indicate exploitation attempts. Additionally, deploying application-level protections including JSON validation rules, input sanitization, and rate limiting mechanisms can help reduce the attack surface and limit the impact of potential exploitation attempts. Security teams should also establish monitoring procedures to detect unusual patterns in gateway performance metrics that may indicate denial of service conditions. The remediation process should follow IBM's official security advisory and patch management procedures, ensuring that all affected systems receive the appropriate updates. Organizations may also consider implementing redundant gateway configurations or load balancing strategies to maintain service availability during patch deployment windows. This vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of proper input validation in security-critical components and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004, "Endpoint Denial of Service," highlighting the need for comprehensive denial of service protection mechanisms in enterprise infrastructure components.