Quantum Secular Labs / Blog / Advisories

CVE-2018-12533: Red Hat Richfaces: Authentication bypass

CVE-2018-12533 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.0 base score of 9.8 and affects Red Hat Richfaces. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without authentication, without any user interaction. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available.

Vulnerability description

JBoss RichFaces 3.1.0 through 3.3.4 allows unauthenticated remote attackers to inject expression language (EL) expressions and execute arbitrary Java code via a /DATA/ substring in a path with an org.richfaces.renderkit.html.Paint2DResource$ImageData object, aka RF-14310.

Severity breakdown

CVSS v3.0 9.8: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network, with no need for local or physical access.
Attack complexity: Low. No special conditions; the attack can be repeated reliably.
Privileges required: None. No account or prior access is needed.
User interaction: None. No action from any user is needed.
Scope: Unchanged. Impact stays within the vulnerable component.
Confidentiality impact: High. Total loss of confidentiality; sensitive data can be fully disclosed.
Integrity impact: High. Total loss of integrity; data or system state can be fully modified.
Availability impact: High. Total loss of availability; the component can be shut down.

Underlying weakness

CWE-917: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an Expression Language Statement

The product constructs all or part of an expression language (EL) statement in a framework such as a Java Server Page (JSP) using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended EL statement before it is executed.

Affected products

Red Hat Richfaces: from 3.1.0 up to and including 3.3.4