Quantum Secular Labs / Blog / Advisories

CVE-2018-5241: Broadcom Advanced Secure Gateway: Authentication bypass

CVE-2018-5241 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.0 base score of 9.8 and affects Broadcom Advanced Secure Gateway, along with 1 other product in NVD’s configuration data. 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

Symantec Advanced Secure Gateway (ASG) 6.6 and 6.7, and ProxySG 6.5, 6.6, and 6.7 are susceptible to a SAML authentication bypass vulnerability. The products can be configured with a SAML authentication realm to authenticate network users in intercepted proxy traffic. When parsing SAML responses, ASG and ProxySG incorrectly handle XML nodes with comments. A remote attacker can modify a valid SAML response without invalidating its cryptographic signature. This may allow the attacker to bypass user authentication security controls in ASG and ProxySG. This vulnerability only affects authentication of network users in intercepted traffic. It does not affect administrator user authentication for the ASG and ProxySG management consoles.

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.

Affected products

  • Broadcom Advanced Secure Gateway: 6.6; 6.7
  • Broadcom Symantec Proxysg: 6.5; 6.6; 6.7

References