CVE-2022-1067 in Patient Portal
Summary
by MITRE • 04/12/2022
Navigating to a specific URL with a patient ID number will result in the server generating a PDF of a lab report without authentication and rate limiting.
If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/14/2022
This vulnerability represents a critical access control flaw that allows unauthenticated users to retrieve sensitive medical information through a straightforward URL manipulation technique. The issue stems from improper authentication checks within the web application's document generation functionality, specifically when processing patient ID numbers in URL parameters. Attackers can exploit this weakness by constructing malicious URLs that directly reference patient records, bypassing all standard authentication mechanisms and access controls that should normally prevent unauthorized data access.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability demonstrates a classic path traversal and privilege escalation issue where the application fails to validate user credentials or session tokens before generating and serving PDF documents containing confidential medical data. This flaw operates at the application layer and can be exploited through simple HTTP requests without requiring any specialized tools or advanced knowledge of the system architecture. The absence of rate limiting mechanisms exacerbates the vulnerability by allowing automated exploitation at scale, potentially enabling bulk data extraction of multiple patient records within a short timeframe.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability creates a severe data exposure risk that could compromise thousands of patient medical records simultaneously. The lack of authentication enforcement means that any individual with knowledge of the application's URL structure can access sensitive health information, potentially leading to identity theft, insurance fraud, and violation of privacy regulations such as HIPAA. The absence of rate limiting allows for rapid exploitation and data harvesting, making this vulnerability particularly dangerous in environments where large volumes of patient data are stored and accessible through web interfaces.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-285, which addresses improper authorization issues in software systems, and maps to ATT&CK technique T1071.004 for application layer protocol manipulation. Organizations should implement immediate authentication controls that validate user credentials before document generation requests are processed, combined with robust rate limiting mechanisms to prevent automated exploitation. Additional mitigations include input validation for patient ID parameters, session management improvements, and comprehensive access logging to detect and respond to unauthorized access attempts. The remediation process should involve thorough code review of all document generation endpoints, implementation of proper authentication checks, and deployment of web application firewalls to monitor and block suspicious URL patterns.