CVE-2021-2268 in Quoting
Summary
by MITRE • 04/23/2021
Vulnerability in the Oracle Quoting product of Oracle E-Business Suite (component: Courseware). Supported versions that are affected are 12.1.1-12.1.3. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows low privileged attacker with network access via HTTP to compromise Oracle Quoting. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized creation, deletion or modification access to critical data or all Oracle Quoting accessible data as well as unauthorized access to critical data or complete access to all Oracle Quoting accessible data. CVSS 3.1 Base Score 8.1 (Confidentiality and Integrity impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N).
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/25/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2021-2268 resides within Oracle E-Business Suite's Quoting product, specifically affecting the Courseware component across versions 12.1.1 through 12.1.3. This represents a critical security flaw that demonstrates how enterprise applications can harbor significant risks even within their intended operational boundaries. The vulnerability's classification as easily exploitable indicates that attackers with minimal privileges and network access can potentially compromise the system, making it particularly dangerous in production environments where such applications often handle sensitive business data. The CVSS score of 8.1 reflects the severity of impact, with high confidentiality and integrity implications that can result in unauthorized data manipulation and access.
The technical flaw manifests as a weakness in the authentication and authorization mechanisms within the Oracle Quoting application, allowing attackers with low privilege network access via HTTP to gain unauthorized access to critical data and perform destructive operations. This vulnerability operates at the application layer and leverages the HTTP protocol to exploit insufficient access controls, which is a common pattern seen in web application security flaws. The vulnerability's impact extends beyond simple data theft to include the ability to create, delete, or modify critical data, potentially leading to complete data compromise. This aligns with CWE-285, which addresses improper authorization issues in software systems, and demonstrates how weak access control implementations can lead to severe operational consequences.
The operational impact of CVE-2021-2268 is substantial for organizations utilizing Oracle E-Business Suite, as it exposes sensitive quoting data that likely contains proprietary pricing information, customer details, and business-critical transactional data. Successful exploitation could result in financial losses through data manipulation, competitive disadvantage from information leakage, and regulatory compliance violations. The vulnerability's ability to provide complete access to all Oracle Quoting accessible data means that attackers could potentially disrupt business operations by modifying pricing structures or deleting critical records. This threat scenario aligns with ATT&CK technique T1078 which covers valid accounts and T1566 which covers phishing attacks, as the vulnerability can be exploited through network-based attacks that leverage weak authentication mechanisms.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including applying Oracle's security patches, implementing network segmentation to limit access to the affected application, and conducting thorough access control reviews to ensure that only authorized personnel can access the Quoting functionality. Additional measures should include monitoring network traffic for suspicious HTTP requests, implementing web application firewalls to detect and block exploitation attempts, and conducting regular vulnerability assessments to identify similar weaknesses in other Oracle EBS components. The vulnerability highlights the importance of maintaining up-to-date security patches and demonstrates how even minor access control flaws can result in significant operational and financial consequences. Organizations should also consider implementing principle of least privilege access controls and regular security audits to prevent similar vulnerabilities from persisting in their environments.