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CVE-2018-15890: Ethereumj: Insecure deserialization

CVE-2018-15890 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.0 base score of 9.8 and affects Ethereumj. 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

An issue was discovered in EthereumJ 1.8.2. There is Unsafe Deserialization in ois.readObject in mine/Ethash.java and decoder.readObject in crypto/ECKey.java. When a node syncs and mines a new block, arbitrary OS commands can be run on the server.

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-502: Deserialization of Untrusted Data

The product deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently ensuring that the resulting data will be valid.

Affected products

• Ethereumj: 1.8.2

References

• https://github.com/ethereum/ethereumj/issues/1161
• https://github.com/frohoff/ysoserial/
• https://github.com/ethereum/ethereumj