Security Bulletin: qs (QueryString) package in the Service Portal of IBM Control Desk is vulnerable (CVE-2014-7191 and CVE-2017-1000048)

Summary

As per the BlackDuck Scan, there is one package qs (QueryString) which is vulnerable in the Service Portal. The qs (QueryString) package is coming from multer modules installed as npm package.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID:CVE-2014-7191
**DESCRIPTION:**Node.js is vulnerable to a denial of service, caused by an error in the qs module when parsing a string representing a deeply nested object. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to block the event loop for an extended period of time and cause a denial of service.
CVSS Base score: 5
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/96729 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P)

CVEID:CVE-2017-1000048
**DESCRIPTION:**Ljharb qs is vulnerable to a denial of service. By sending a specially-crafted request, a remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause the application to crash.
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/130305 for the current score.
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

Remediation/Fixes

The multer package is vulnerable for security reasons and must be removed as per the below procedure:

For IBM Control Desk (Service Portal) 7.6.1.4 and earlier versions:

1. Stop running instance of the Node Server.
2. Go to installed directory of Service Portal <installed-directory>/node_modules/
3. Search for multer directory and delete it.
4. Start the instance of the Node Server.

Note: The above solution is being implemented in IBM Control Desk (Service Portal) 7.6.1.5.

Workarounds and Mitigations

None