Security Bulletin: Vulnerability in Diffie-Hellman ciphers affects the IBM Installation Manager and IBM Packaging Utility (CVE-2015-4000)

Summary

The Logjam Attack on TLS connections using the Diffie-Hellman (DH) key exchange protocol affects the IBM Installation Manager and IBM Packaging Utility.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID: CVE-2015-4000**
DESCRIPTION:** The TLS protocol could allow a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information, caused by the failure to properly convey a DHE_EXPORT ciphersuite choice. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability using man-in-the-middle techniques to force a downgrade to 512-bit export-grade cipher. Successful exploitation could allow an attacker to recover the session key as well as modify the contents of the traffic. This vulnerability is commonly referred to as “Logjam”.
CVSS Base Score: 4.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/103294 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N)

Affected Products and Versions

IBM Installation Manager and IBM Packaging Utility versions 1.8.3 and earlier.

Remediation/Fixes

Product

|

VRMF |

APAR |

Remediation/First Fix
—|—|—|—

Installation Manager and IBM Packaging Utility |

1.0 - 1.7.4.x |

None |

1.7.4.3 IBM Installation Manager Remediation
1.7.4.3 IBM Packaging Utility Remediation

Please note that the 1.7.4.3 fix is intended for upgrade of 1.7.4.2 and earlier versions which continue support on platforms that are NOT supported by 1.8 or later versions.

Users running 1.7.4.2 or earlier version on platforms that ARE supported by 1.8.x version, should upgrade to 1.8.3 and implement the work around described below.

Installation Manager and IBM Packaging Utility |

1.8.x |

None |

1.8.4 IBM Installation Manager Remediation_
_1.8.4 IBM Packaging Utility Remediation

You should verify applying this configuration change does not cause any compatibility issues. If you change the default setting after applying the fix, you will expose yourself to the attack described above. IBM recommends that you review your entire environment to identify other areas where you have enabled the Diffie-Hellman key-exchange protocol used in TLS and take appropriate mitigation and remediation actions.

Workarounds and Mitigations

For the 1.8.x releases, you can work around this vulnerability by disabling DH and DHE cipher suites. This can be achieved by adding the DH andDHEcipher suites to the list of disabled algorithms defined by thejdk.tls.disabledAlgorithmssecurity property injava.security file. This does NOT include ciphers that have ECDH or ECDHE in the name; these are elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman ciphers and they are not affected.

_
For the IBM Installation Manager:_

You will find the java.security file in the following folder, by platform:

• AIX Platforms: <Installation Manager install_dir>/eclipse/jre_<version>/jre/lib/security/
• HP-UX Platforms: <Installation Manager install_dir>/eclipse/jre_<version>/jre/lib/security/
• Linux and Solaris Platforms: <Installation Manager install_dir>/eclipse/jre_<version>/jre/lib/security/
• Windows Platforms: <Installation Manager install_dir>\eclipse\jre_<version>\jre\lib\security\
• Mac OSX Platforms: <Installation Manager install_dir>/eclipse/jre_<version>/jre/Contents/Home/lib/security/

For the IBM Packaging Utility:

You will find the java.security file in the following folder, by platform:

• AIX Platforms: <Packaging Utility install_dir>/jre/lib/security/
• Linux and Solaris Platforms: <Packaging Utility install_dir>/jre/lib/security/
• Windows Platforms: <Packaging Utility install_dir>\jre\lib\security\
• Mac OSX Platforms: <Packaging Utility install_dir>/jre/Contents/Home/lib/security/
• You should verify applying this configuration change does not cause any compatibility issues. If you change the default setting after applying the fix, you will expose yourself to the attack described above. IBM recommends that you review your entire environment to identify other areas where you have enabled the Diffie-Hellman key-exchange protocol used in TLS and take appropriate mitigation and remediation actions.