Security Bulletin: Multiple security vulnerabilities in Elasticsearch might affect Process Federation Server in IBM Business Process Manager (BPM) - CVE-2015-5531, CVE-2015-5377

Summary

IBM Process Federation Server is an optional component that is shipped with IBM Business Process Manager (BPM) V8.5.6.0. It allows the collection of task information of existing IBM Business Process Manager environments to provide a federated task list. IBM Process Federation Server uses the Elasticsearch open source library to provide a highly scalable infrastructure. Security vulnerabilities that have been disclosed by the Elasticsearch project might affect IBM Process Federation Server.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID: CVE-2015-5377**
DESCRIPTION:** Elasticsearch could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system, caused by an error in the transport protocol. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code on the system.
CVSS Base Score: 7.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/104849 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L)

CVEID: CVE-2015-5531**
DESCRIPTION:** Elasticsearch could allow a remote attacker to traverse directories on the system. An attacker could send a specially-crafted URL request containing ““dot dot”” sequences (/…/) using the JVM process to read arbitrary files on the system.
CVSS Base Score: 5.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/104848 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N)

Affected Products and Versions

• IBM Process Federation Server that is shipped as an optional component with IBM Business Process Manager V8.5.6.0.

IBM Process Federation Server V8.5.7.0 is not affected.

Remediation/Fixes

Install cumulative fix JR55454 for IBM Process Federation Server.

• IBM Business Process Manager Advanced
• IBM Business Process Manager Standard

Workarounds and Mitigations

As an immediate mitigation, the following configuration measures are recommended:

1. According to the Elasticsearch security issues page CVE-2015-5531 is caused by a flaw in Elasticsearch’s snapshot API. For protection, all Elasticsearch REST APIs have been disabled in IBM Process Federation Server by default. Required functionality is provided using IBM Process Federation Server REST APIs.
   If it is necessary to use the Elasticsearch REST APIs, for example to use open source administrative utilities on top of Elasticsearch, then these APIs can be enabled by authorizing users to call a IBM Process Federation Server forwarder application that will enforce authentication and authorization before forwarding the request to the Elasticsearch API. There are three authorization roles to restrict access to Elasticsearch APIs via the forwarder application. Only the bpmadmin role provides access to the snapshot API.
   In order to mitigate CVE-2015-5531, we recommend that you do not enable the forwarder application for the bpmadmin role, thereby keeping the Elasticsearch REST APIs inaccessible. If you have a need to enable access to the Elasticsearch API, ensure a minimal set of authorized users.
2. CVE-2015-5377 is a remote code execution vulnerability in which a malicious client can connect to a TCP port provided by Elasticsearch for communication between cluster members. Establish firewall rules that allow inbound traffic to the port specified in transport.tcp.p__o__r__t only from machines that host other IBM Process Federation Server cluster members.