CVE-2021-2392 in BI Publisher
Summary
by MITRE • 07/21/2021
Vulnerability in the Oracle BI Publisher product of Oracle Fusion Middleware (component: BI Publisher Security). Supported versions that are affected are 5.5.0.0.0, 11.1.1.7.0, 11.1.1.9.0, 12.2.1.3.0 and 12.2.1.4.0. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows low privileged attacker with network access via HTTP to compromise Oracle BI Publisher. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in takeover of Oracle BI Publisher. CVSS 3.1 Base Score 8.8 (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H).
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/24/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2021-2392 represents a critical security flaw within Oracle BI Publisher, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware that serves as a powerful business intelligence and reporting platform. This vulnerability specifically resides within the BI Publisher Security module and affects multiple version lines including 5.5.0.0.0, 11.1.1.7.0, 11.1.1.9.0, 12.2.1.3.0, and 12.2.1.4.0, indicating a widespread impact across the product's lifecycle. The vulnerability's classification as easily exploitable suggests that attackers with minimal technical expertise can leverage this flaw, making it particularly dangerous for organizations that have not yet patched their systems. The CVSS score of 8.8 reflects the severity of the potential impact, with high scores across all three core security principles: confidentiality, integrity, and availability, demonstrating that successful exploitation could lead to complete system compromise.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from insufficient authentication and authorization controls within the BI Publisher security framework, allowing a low-privileged attacker to gain unauthorized access through HTTP network connections. This flaw essentially creates an entry point that bypasses normal security protocols, enabling malicious actors to escalate their privileges and ultimately take complete control of the affected Oracle BI Publisher instance. The attack vector is particularly concerning as it requires only network access via HTTP, meaning that attackers could potentially exploit this vulnerability from external networks without requiring physical access or specialized local credentials. The vulnerability's design flaw likely involves improper validation of user permissions or session management mechanisms that fail to adequately verify the authenticity and authorization level of incoming requests.
The operational impact of successfully exploiting CVE-2021-2392 extends far beyond simple unauthorized access, as the compromise of an Oracle BI Publisher system can lead to complete organizational data breaches and system disruption. Since BI Publisher typically handles sensitive business intelligence data, reports, and analytics, unauthorized access could result in exposure of confidential business information, financial data, strategic plans, and other proprietary content. The availability impact means that attackers could potentially disrupt business operations by deleting or corrupting reports, data sources, or system configurations. Integrity compromise allows for modification of reports, data transformations, or business logic that could mislead decision-making processes. Organizations using this platform for critical business operations face significant risk of financial loss, regulatory penalties, and reputational damage if this vulnerability is exploited, particularly in industries with strict compliance requirements such as financial services, healthcare, or government sectors.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigation strategies to address this vulnerability, including applying the relevant Oracle Critical Patch Updates as soon as possible, which would contain the specific security flaws in the affected versions. Network segmentation and access controls should be enhanced to limit exposure of BI Publisher systems to only authorized users and systems, while implementing strict firewall rules to restrict HTTP access to necessary administrative networks. The principle of least privilege should be strictly enforced, ensuring that users have only the minimum necessary permissions to perform their duties. Additionally, organizations should conduct comprehensive vulnerability assessments to identify any unauthorized access attempts or anomalies in system logs that might indicate exploitation attempts. Monitoring and alerting systems should be configured to detect unusual patterns in BI Publisher usage, particularly around authentication failures, privilege escalation attempts, or unusual data access patterns. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-287, which addresses improper authentication issues, and maps to ATT&CK technique T1078 for valid accounts usage and T1566 for social engineering, as exploitation often involves leveraging weak authentication mechanisms to gain unauthorized access to business intelligence systems.