Security Bulletin: Vulnerability in RC4 stream cipher affects IBM XIV Storage System Gen2 (CVE-2015-2808)

Summary

The RC4 “Bar Mitzvah” Attack for SSL/TLS affects IBM XIV Storage System Gen2.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID: CVE-2015-2808 DESCRIPTION: The RC4 algorithm, as used in the TLS protocol and SSL protocol, could allow a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to remotely expose account credentials without requiring an active man-in-the-middle session. Successful exploitation could allow an attacker to retrieve credit card data or other sensitive information. This vulnerability is commonly referred to as “Bar Mitzvah Attack”.
CVSS Base Score: 5
CVSS Temporal Score: See https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/101851 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N)

Affected Products and Versions

IBM XIV Storage System Gen2

Remediation/Fixes

Upgrade to release 10.2.4.e-8 to address this issue.

You should verify applying this fix does not cause any compatibility issues. The fix disables RC4 stream cipher by default. IBM recommends that you review your entire environment to identify other areas where you have enabled the RC4 stream cipher and take appropriate mitigation and remediation actions.

Workarounds and Mitigations

Disabling the RC4 cipher on XIV Management Tools and on the third-party CIM client (if used) is a workaround for this issue, as it ensures that the RC4 cipher will not be used to encrypt the management traffic.

To disable RC4 on XIV Management Tools:

· For the IBM XIV XCLI and XIV GUI, edit the file <install-dir>\jre\lib\security\java.security: change the last line to “jdk.tls.disabledAlgorithms=SSLv3, RC4”.After editing, restart the application.

· For the IBM Hyper-Scale Manager, edit the file $JAVA_IBM_HOME/lib/security/java.security, where JAVA_IBM_HOME is by default /home/msms/hyperscale/jre, and change the last line to “jdk.tls.disabledAlgorithms=SSLv3, RC4”.After editing, restart the application.

To disable RC4 on your CIM client, please contact your CIM client vendor for information.

You should verify applying this configuration change does not cause any compatibility issues. Not disabling the RC4 stream cipher 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 RC4 stream cipher and take appropriate mitigation and remediation actions.