Overview
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system has identified a critical vulnerability, CVE-2024-6914, that affects multiple WSO2 products. WSO2 is a popular open-source technology provider known for its integration, API management, and customer identity and access management solutions. This vulnerability arises from an incorrect authorization flaw in the account recovery-related SOAP admin service, which, if exploited, allows a malicious actor to reset the password of any user account, leading to a total account takeover. This potential system compromise or data leakage presents significant risk to businesses and organizations relying on WSO2 products for their critical operations.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2024-6914
Severity: Critical (CVSS 9.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Impact: Full account takeover, potential system compromise or data leakage
Affected Products
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Product | Affected Versions
WSO2 API Manager | All versions prior to 3.2.0
WSO2 Identity Server | All versions prior to 5.11.0
How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability exists due to an incorrect authorization in the account recovery-related SOAP admin service. This service is exposed via the “/services” context path in the affected WSO2 products. A malicious actor can exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted request to the “/services” endpoint to reset the password of any user account. The major concern is that this exploit could lead to the takeover of accounts with elevated privileges, effectively granting the attacker control over the system.
Conceptual Example Code
Below is a conceptual example of how this vulnerability might be exploited. This is a sample HTTP request to the vulnerable endpoint.
POST /services/RecoveryAdminService HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: text/xml
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
xmlns:rec="http://recovery.mgt.identity.carbon.wso2.org">
<soapenv:Header/>
<soapenv:Body>
<rec:verifyUser>
<rec:userName>admin</rec:userName>
</rec:verifyUser>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>In the above example, the attacker tries to reset the password of the ‘admin’ user by exploiting the flawed RecoveryAdminService.
Please note that this example is purely conceptual and may not accurately represent a real exploit.
Mitigation Guidance
To mitigate this vulnerability, WSO2 has provided patches for affected versions. It is highly recommended to apply these patches immediately to eliminate the identified risk. In the interim, using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can serve as temporary mitigation. Additionally, access to the “/services” context path should be restricted based on the “Security Guidelines for Production Deployment” by disabling exposure to untrusted networks.