CVE-2021-40086 in EJBCA
Summary
by MITRE • 08/25/2021
An issue was discovered in PrimeKey EJBCA before 7.6.0. As part of the configuration of the aliases for SCEP, CMP, EST, and Auto-enrollment, the enrollment secret was reflected on a page (that can only be viewed by an administrator). While hidden from direct view, checking the page source would reveal the secret.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/27/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2021-40086 represents a critical configuration flaw within PrimeKey EJBCA versions prior to 7.6.0, specifically affecting the handling of enrollment secrets for security protocols including SCEP, CMP, EST, and Auto-enrollment. This issue stems from improper information disclosure mechanisms where administrative configuration pages containing sensitive credentials are rendered in a manner that exposes the underlying secret values to unauthorized users with administrative access privileges. The vulnerability manifests when administrators navigate to the configuration interface for these security protocols, where the enrollment secret values are displayed in the page source code despite being visually hidden from direct user interaction.
The technical implementation flaw involves the web application's rendering process for administrative configuration pages, where sensitive data elements are not properly sanitized or obfuscated before being transmitted to the client-side browser. This creates a scenario where the enrollment secrets, which are critical components for authenticating enrollment requests within certificate management systems, are stored in the HTML source code as plain text values. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-200, which addresses improper exposure of sensitive information, and specifically demonstrates weaknesses in information hiding and data protection mechanisms. The flaw essentially allows an attacker with administrative access to simply view the page source and extract the enrollment secrets, potentially compromising the entire certificate enrollment infrastructure.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability poses significant security risks to organizations relying on EJBCA for certificate management, as the exposure of enrollment secrets can lead to unauthorized certificate issuance, man-in-the-middle attacks, and complete compromise of the certificate authority's security posture. The vulnerability affects the fundamental trust model of certificate management systems, where the integrity of enrollment processes depends on the secrecy of these credentials. Attackers could leverage this information to impersonate legitimate enrollment clients, request certificates for malicious purposes, or conduct credential stuffing attacks against other systems within the organization's infrastructure. The impact extends beyond immediate credential compromise as it undermines the cryptographic security controls that organizations depend upon for secure communications and identity management.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including upgrading to PrimeKey EJBCA version 7.6.0 or later, where the vulnerability has been addressed through proper input sanitization and output encoding of sensitive configuration values. Administrative access controls should be strengthened through principle of least privilege enforcement, ensuring that only essential personnel have access to administrative configuration interfaces. Additionally, organizations should conduct thorough audits of their certificate management systems to identify any potential exploitation attempts and implement monitoring solutions that can detect unauthorized access to administrative pages. The vulnerability demonstrates the importance of following security best practices for handling sensitive information in web applications, aligning with ATT&CK technique T1552.001 for unsecured credentials and T1071.004 for application layer protocol. Regular security assessments of web application interfaces and configuration management processes should be implemented to prevent similar information disclosure vulnerabilities from occurring in other components of the certificate infrastructure stack.