CVE-2024-39744 in Sterling Connect Direct Web Services
Summary
by MITRE • 08/22/2024
IBM Sterling Connect:Direct Web Services 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3 is vulnerable to cross-site request forgery which could allow an attacker to execute malicious and unauthorized actions transmitted from a user that the website trusts.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/13/2025
IBM Sterling Connect:Direct Web Services versions 6.0 through 6.3 contain a critical cross-site request forgery vulnerability that enables attackers to perform unauthorized administrative actions on behalf of authenticated users. This vulnerability resides in the web service interface where the application fails to properly validate and enforce the origin of requests, allowing malicious actors to craft forged requests that appear legitimate to the server. The flaw specifically impacts the authentication and authorization mechanisms within the web services framework, where session tokens and user credentials are accepted without proper verification of the request source. According to CWE-352, this represents a classic cross-site request forgery vulnerability where the application does not adequately distinguish between legitimate and malicious requests. The vulnerability allows attackers to execute actions such as creating new user accounts, modifying existing configurations, accessing sensitive data, or performing administrative tasks that should be restricted to authorized personnel only. This weakness directly maps to ATT&CK technique T1531 which involves establishing persistence through modifications to authentication mechanisms, and T1078 which covers legitimate credentials usage for unauthorized access. The impact extends beyond simple data theft as attackers can potentially gain complete control over the Connect:Direct Web Services environment, leading to unauthorized file transfers, system compromise, and potential lateral movement within the network infrastructure. The vulnerability is particularly concerning because it affects multiple versions of the software, suggesting a systemic issue in the web service implementation that has not been adequately addressed in the affected releases. Organizations using these versions face significant risk as the attack surface includes any authenticated user session that could be exploited through social engineering or by compromising a user's browser through other means. The lack of proper anti-forgery token validation creates an environment where attackers can leverage existing user sessions to perform privileged operations without requiring additional authentication credentials. This vulnerability represents a critical gap in the application's security architecture and demonstrates the importance of implementing proper request origin validation and CSRF protection mechanisms in web applications. The affected system architecture relies heavily on the assumption that requests originating from the same domain are legitimate, which creates a fundamental security flaw that can be exploited by attackers who understand the application's API behavior and request patterns. Organizations should immediately implement mitigations including the enforcement of anti-forgery tokens, proper request origin validation, and the implementation of additional authentication layers to protect against this specific vulnerability. The vulnerability also highlights the need for comprehensive security testing of web service interfaces and the importance of following secure coding practices that prevent unauthorized privilege escalation through CSRF attacks.