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ACROS Security Problem Report #2009-01-27-1

ASPR #2009-01-27-1: HTML Injection in BEA WebLogic Server Console

Document ID: ASPR #2009-01-27-1-PUB
Vendor: ORACLE (http://www.oracle.com)
Target: Oracle WebLogic Server 10.0
Impact: There is an HTML Injection vulnerability in WebLogic
Server 10 Administration Console that allows the
attacker to gain administrative access to the server.
Severity: High
Status: Official patch available, workarounds available
Discovered by: Sasa Kos of ACROS Security

Current version
http://www.acrossecurity.com/aspr/ASPR-2009-01-27-1-PUB.txt

Summary

There is an HTML Injection vulnerability in WebLogic Server 10
Administration Console that allows the attacker to gain administrative
access to the server. It is possible to craft such URL that will, when
requested from the server, return a document with arbitrarily chosen HTML
injected. An obvious use for this type of vulnerability is cross- site
scripting that can be used, among other things, for obtaining session
cookies from WebLogic administrators. These cookies, when stolen, provide
the attacker with administrative access to WebLogic Administration
Console, compromising the security of the entire web server.

This vulnerability is exploitable even if the Administration Console is
only being accessed via HTTPS, and even if the Administrative Port is
enabled.

Product Coverage

• WebLogic Server 10.0

Note: Our tests were only performed on the above product version. Other
versions may or may not be affected.

Analysis

Some URL argument in the WebLogic Server 10 Administration Console is
not properly sanitized against HTML injection, which allows the attacker
to introduce additional, malicious HTML to the server's response. The
most common type of HTML injection is injection of malicious client-side
script, commonly known as cross-site scripting.

In an actual attack the user would not be required to open URLs specified
by the attacker. Instead, a malicious web page visited by the logged-in
WebLogic administrator would mount the entire attack automatically and
covertly. For instance, a tiny 0x0 pixel iframe could be used for loading
the URL from the demonstration immediately upon administrator's visit to
the malicious page, injecting the malicious script to the WebLogic
server's response. This malicious script would then silently send these
cookies to the attacker's server, where she could pick them up and use
them for entering the administrator's session in the Administration
Console.

Mitigating Factors

• In order to execute the above attack, the attacker would need to make
  the administrator's browser visit a malicious web page while the
  administrator is logged into the Administration Console. This can be
  achieved using social engineering, network traffic modification or a
  combination of both.

• If the attacker manages to obtain a valid ADMINCONSOLESESSION cookie
  (and optionally _WL_AUTHCOOKIE_ADMINCONSOLESESSION cookie), these will
  only be useful until the administrator logs out of the Administration
  Console. However, the attacker knowing that might rush to create a new
  administrative user in the console and use that user for WebLogic
  administration after the legitimate administrator has logged off.

Solution

ORACLE has issued a security bulletin [1] and published a patch which
fixes this issue.

Workaround

• WebLogic administrators can be trained not to browse other web pages
  while logged in to the Administration Console. However, since some
  hyperlinks in the console point to servers on the Internet (e.g.,
  http://support.bea.com) the attacker could watch the administrator's
  Internet traffic and detect such requests as a strong sign that the
  administrator is currently logged in to the Administration Console. She
  would then slightly modify the Internet server's response so as to include
  the malicious code. Such an attack could only be mounted by attackers
  capable of monitoring and modifying the administrator's Internet traffic
  (most likely an ISP or someone who broke into an ISP).

• The WebLogic Administration Console can be disabled, which would
  neutralize this vulnerability.

References

[1] Oracle Critical Patch Update Advisory - January 2009
http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/security/critical-patch-
updates/cpujan2009.html

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge BEA Systems and Oracle Corporation for
professional handling of the identified vulnerability.

Contact

ACROS d.o.o.
Makedonska ulica 113
SI - 2000 Maribor

e-mail: [email protected]
web: http://www.acrossecurity.com
phone: +386 2 3000 280
fax: +386 2 3000 282

ACROS Security PGP Key
http://www.acrossecurity.com/pgpkey.asc
[Fingerprint: FE9E 0CFB CE41 36B0 4720 C4F1 38A3 F7DD]

ACROS Security Advisories
http://www.acrossecurity.com/advisories.htm

ACROS Security Papers
http://www.acrossecurity.com/papers.htm

ASPR Notification and Publishing Policy
http://www.acrossecurity.com/asprNotificationAndPublishingPolicy.htm

Disclaimer

The content of this report is purely informational and meant only for the
purpose of education and protection. ACROS d.o.o. shall in no event be
liable for any damage whatsoever, direct or implied, arising from use or
spread of this information. All identifiers (hostnames, IP addresses,
company names, individual names etc.) used in examples and demonstrations
are used only for explanatory purposes and have no connection with any
real host, company or individual. In no event should it be assumed that
use of these names means specific hosts, companies or individuals are
vulnerable to any attacks nor does it mean that they consent to being used
in any vulnerability tests. The use of information in this report is
entirely at user's risk.

Revision History

January 27, 2009: Initial release

Copyright

(c) 2009 ACROS d.o.o. Forwarding and publishing of this document is
permitted providing the content between "[BEGIN-ACROS-REPORT]" and
"[END-ACROS-REPORT]" marks remains unchanged.

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