Security Bulletin: Vulnerability in Python affects IBM Analytics Engine (CVE-2018-14647)

Summary

Python is vulnerable to a denial of service, caused by a flaw in the elementtree C accelerator. By using a specially-crafted XML document, a remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause a resource exhaustion.

Vulnerability Details

CVE-ID: CVE-2018-14647

DESCRIPTION: Python’s elementtree C accelerator failed to initialise Expat’s hash salt during initialization. This could make it easy to conduct denial of service attacks against Expat by constructing an XML document that would cause pathological hash collisions in Expat’s internal data structures, consuming large amounts CPU and RAM.

CVSS Base Score: 5.3

CVSS Temporal Score: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/150579 for more information

CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined

CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L)

Affected Products and Versions

• IBM Analytics Engine 1.1
• IBM Analytics Engine 1.0

Remediation/Fixes

• IBM Analytics Engine 1.2 is not affected by this vulnerability.
• IBM Analytics Engine 1.0 is deprecated and no new provisioning is allowed as of May 15 2019. Users on IBM Analytics Engine 1.0 clusters must upgrade to IBM Analytics Engine 1.2 and move their applications to Python 3.
• IBM Analytics Engine 1.1 will be deprecated and no new provisioning will be allowed as of August 30 2019. Users on IBM Analytics Engine 1.1 clusters must upgrade to IBM Analytics Engine 1.2 and and move their applications to Python 3.

Workarounds and Mitigations

None.