Security Bulletin: Vulnerabilities in Apache Kafka and NGINX affect IBM Spectrum Discover

Summary

The vulnerabilities in Apache Kafka could allow a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information and the vulnerabilities in NGINX could provide weaker than expected security, caused by an ALPACA (application layer protocol content confusion) attack, which exploits TLS servers implementing different protocols but using compatible certificates.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID:CVE-2021-38153
**DESCRIPTION:**Apache Kafka could allow a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information, caused by a timing attack flaw due to the use of “Arrays.equals” to validate a password or key. By utilizing brute-force attack techniques, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to obtain credentials information, and use this information to launch further attacks against the affected system.
CVSS Base score: 7.5
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/209762 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N)

CVEID:CVE-2021-3618
**DESCRIPTION:**Sendmail, vsftpd and NGINX could provide weaker than expected security, caused by an ALPACA (application layer protocol content confusion) attack, which exploits TLS servers implementing different protocols but using compatible certificates. By using man-in the-middle attack techniques, a remote attacker with access to victim’s traffic at the TCP/IP layer could redirect traffic from one subdomain to another, resulting in a valid TLS session. The session breaks the authentication of TLS and the packages become vulnerable to cross-protocol attacks.
CVSS Base score: 7.4
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/207761 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N)

Affected Products and Versions

Remediation/Fixes

Installed versions of Spectrum Discover (2.0.3, 2.0.3.1, 2.0.3.2, 2.0.3.3, 2.0.3.4, 2.0.3.5, 2.0.3.6, 2.0.4, 2.0.4.1, 2.0.4.2, 2.0.4.3) can be upgraded to fixed version using the IBM Spectrum Discover 2.0.3.7 upgrader and IBM Spectrum Discover 2.0.4.4 upgrader.

Workarounds and Mitigations

None