Security Bulletin: Vulnerabilities in OpenSSH affect SAN Volume Controller and Storwize Family (CVE-2015-6563 CVE-2015-6564)

Summary

OpenSSH vulnerabilities were disclosed in May 2016 by the OpenSSH Project. OpenSSH is used by SAN Volume Controller and Storwize Family in its CLI. SAN Volume Controller and Storwize Family products have addressed the applicable CVEs.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID: CVE-2015-6563**
DESCRIPTION:** OpenSSH could allow a local attacker to bypass security restrictions, caused by the acceptance of extraneous username data in MONITOR_REQ_PAM_INIT_CTX requests by the monitor component in sshd. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to conduct impersonation attacks.
CVSS Base Score: 4
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/105881 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N)

CVEID: CVE-2015-6564**
DESCRIPTION:** OpenSSH could allow a local attacker to gain elevated privileges on the system, caused by a use-after-free error in the mm_answer_pam_free_ctx function. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to gain elevated privileges on the system.
CVSS Base Score: 7.4
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/105882 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)

Affected Products and Versions

IBM SAN Volume Controller
IBM Storwize V7000
IBM Storwize V5000
IBM Storwize V3700
IBM Storwize V3500

All products are affected when running supported releases 1.1 to 7.5.

Remediation/Fixes

IBM recommends that you fix this vulnerability by upgrading affected versions of IBM SAN Volume Controller, IBM Storwize V7000, V5000, V3700 and V3500 to the following code levels or higher:

7.6.1.5
7.7.0.4
7.7.1.2

Latest SAN Volume Controller Code
Latest Storwize V7000 Code
Latest Storwize V5000 Code
Latest Storwize V3700 Code
Latest Storwize V3500 Code

Workarounds and Mitigations

Although IBM recommends that you install a level of code with a fix for this vulnerability, you can mitigate, although not eliminate, your risk until you have done so by ensuring that all users who have access to the system are authenticated by another security system such as a firewall.