Security Bulletin: Multiple vulnerabilities present in IBM Answer Retrieval for Watson Discovery versions 2.15 and earlier

Summary

This fix upgrades to Node.js 18.19.1. Node.js is used by all IBM Answer Retrieval for Watson Discovery user interfaces. There are two categories of vulnerabilities addressed. The first allows remote attackers to gain access to the system, bypassing security restrictions. The second makes Node.js vulnerable to denial of service attacks. This bulletin identifies the steps to take to address the vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID:CVE-2024-21896
**DESCRIPTION:**Node.js could allow a remote attacker to traverse directories on the system. By monkey-patching Buffer internals, namely, Buffer.prototype.utf8Write, an attacker could send a specially crafted URL request containing “dot dot” sequences (/…/) to read arbitrary files on the system.
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/282989 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N)

CVEID:CVE-2023-46809
**DESCRIPTION:**Node.js could allow a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information, caused by a vulnerability in the privateDecrypt() API of the crypto library. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to conduct a covert timing side-channel during PKCS#1 v1.5 padding error handling and obtain significant timing differences in decryption for valid and invalid ciphertexts.
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/282990 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N)

CVEID:CVE-2024-21892
**DESCRIPTION:**Node.js could allow a local authenticated attacker to gain elevated privileges on the system, caused by a bug in the implementation of the exception of CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to inject code that inherits the process’s elevated privileges.
CVSS Base score: 7.8
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/282986 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)

CVEID:CVE-2024-22017
**DESCRIPTION:**Node.js could allow a local attacker to gain elevated privileges on the system, caused by the failure of setuid() to drop all privileges due to io_uring. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to perform privileged operations.
CVSS Base score: 8.4
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/282987 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)

CVEID:CVE-2024-21891
**DESCRIPTION:**Node.js could allow a remote attacker to bypass security restrictions, caused by improper path traversal sequence sanitization. By using a path traversal attack, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability leading to filesystem permission model bypass.
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/282991 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N)

CVEID:CVE-2024-22019
**DESCRIPTION:**Node.js is vulnerable to a denial of service, caused by an error when reading unprocessed HTTP request with unbounded chunk extension. By sending a specially crafted HTTP request, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to exhaust all available resources.
CVSS Base score: 7.5
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/282988 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

CVEID:CVE-2024-21890
**DESCRIPTION:**Node.js could allow a remote attacker to bypass security restrictions, caused by the improper handling of wildcards in --allow-fs-read and --allow-fs-write. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to gain access to the system.
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/282992 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N)

CVEID:CVE-2024-22025
**DESCRIPTION:**Node.js is vulnerable to a denial of service, caused by a resource exhaustion flaw in fetch() brotli decoding . By sending a specially crafted request, a remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause a denial of service condition.
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/284417 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

Workarounds and Mitigations

N/A