Security Bulletin: Multiple security vulnerabilities affect IBM WebSphere Application Server for Bluemix

Summary

There is an XML External Entity Injection (XXE) vulnerability in the Apache Standard Taglibs that affects IBM WebSphere Application Server. There is an information disclosure vulnerability in IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty for any users of the JAX-RS API. There is a potential for weaker than expected security when using the WebSphere Application Server Liberty profile API Discovery feature and Swagger documents. There is a potential information disclosure vulnerability in Admin Center for IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty. There is a potential HTTP response splitting vulnerability in IBM WebSphere Application Server. OpenSSL vulnerabilities were disclosed on May 3, 2016 by the OpenSSL Project.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID: CVE-2015-0254**
DESCRIPTION:** Apache Standard Taglibs could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system, caused by an XML External Entity Injection (XXE) error when processing XML data. By sending specially-crafted XML data, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code on the system.
CVSS Base Score: 5
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/101550 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N)

CVEID: CVE-2016-2923**
DESCRIPTION:** IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty using JAX-RS API could allow a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information, caused by the failure to set the HTTPOnly flag. A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to obtain sensitive information from the cookie.
CVSS Base Score: 5.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/113354 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N)

CVEID: CVE-2016-2945**
DESCRIPTION:** IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty Profile using the API discovery feature could provide weaker than expected security. when using Swagger documents with external references, which could allow an authenticated attacker to gain the privileges of the user.
CVSS Base Score: 5
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/113591 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L)

CVEID: CVE-2016-0389**
DESCRIPTION:** IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty could allow a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information caused by improper handling by the Admin Center.
CVSS Base Score: 5.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/112529 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N)

CVEID: CVE-2016-0359**
DESCRIPTION:** IBM WebSphere Application Server is vulnerable to HTTP response splitting attacks. A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability using specially-crafted URL to cause the server to return a split response, once the URL is clicked. This would allow the attacker to perform further attacks, such as Web cache poisoning, cross-site scripting, and possibly obtain sensitive information.
CVSS Base Score: 6.1
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/111929 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N)

CVEID: CVE-2016-2107**
DESCRIPTION:** OpenSSL could allow a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information, caused by an error when the connection uses an AES CBC cipher and the server support AES-NI. A remote user with the ability to conduct a man-in-the-middle attack could exploit this vulnerability via the POODLE (Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption) attack to decrypt traffic.
CVSS Base Score: 4.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/112854 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N)

CVEID: CVE-2016-2105**
DESCRIPTION:** OpenSSL is vulnerable to a heap-based buffer overflow, caused by improper bounds checking by the EVP_EncodeUpdate() function. By sending an overly long argument, a remote attacker could overflow a buffer and execute arbitrary code on the system or cause the application to crash.
CVSS Base Score: 5.6
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/112855 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L)

CVEID: CVE-2016-2106**
DESCRIPTION:** OpenSSL is vulnerable to a heap-based buffer overflow, caused by improper bounds checking by the EVP_EncryptUpdate() function. By sending an overly long argument, a remote attacker could overflow a buffer and execute arbitrary code on the system or cause the application to crash.
CVSS Base Score: 5.6
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/112856 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L)

CVEID: CVE-2016-2109**
DESCRIPTION:** OpenSSL is vulnerable to a denial of service, caused by a memory allocation error. By reading specially crafted ASN.1 data from a BIO using functions such as d2i_CMS_bio(), an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to consume all available resources and exhaust memory.
CVSS Base Score: 5.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/112857 for the current score
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)

CVEID: CVE-2016-2176**
DESCRIPTION:** OpenSSL could allow a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information, By sending an overly long ASN.1 string to the X509_NAME_oneline() function, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to return arbitrary stack data in the buffer.
CVSS Base Score: 5.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/112858 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N)

CVEID: CVE-2016-2108**
DESCRIPTION:** OpenSSL could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system, caused by a buffer underflow when deserializing untrusted ASN.1 structures and later reserializes them. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to corrupt memory and trigger an out-of-bounds write and execute arbitrary code on the system.
CVSS Base Score: 8.1
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/112853 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)

Affected Products and Versions

All vulnerabilities affect the following versions and releases of IBM WebSphere Application Server:

• Version 8.5.5 Liberty
  Only CVE-2016-0254, CVE-2016-0359 and OpenSSL vulnerabilities affect the following versions and releases of IBM WebSphere Application Server:
• Version 8.5.5 Full Profile.

Remediation/Fixes

To patch an existing service instance requires two steps:

1. To update WebSphere Application Server refer to the IBM WebSphere Application Server bulletins:

Security Bulletin: Vulnerability in Apache Standard Taglibs affects IBM WebSphere Application Server (CVE-2015-0254)

Security Bulletin: Information disclosure in WebSphere Application Server Liberty (CVE-2016-2923)

Security Bulletin: WebSphere Application Server Liberty API Discovery feature has potential vulnerability (CVE-2016-2945)

Security Bulletin: Information disclosure vulnerability in IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty (CVE-2016-0389)

Security Bulletin: HTTP Response Splitting in WebSphere Application Server (CVE-2016-0359)

2. To apply the RHEL OS updates, run yum update.

When creating a new service instance, the following maintenance must be manually applied to an IBM WebSphere Application Server Version 8.5.5 Full Profile:

Security Bulletin: HTTP Response Splitting in WebSphere Application Server (CVE-2016-0359)

All other maintenance is included in the new service instance.