ID: IRCNE2013112020
Date: 2013-11-20
According to "computerworld", attackers are actively exploiting a known vulnerability to compromise JBoss Java EE application servers that expose the HTTP Invoker service to the Internet in an insecure manner.
At the beginning of October security researcher Andrea Micalizzi released an exploit for a vulnerability he identified in products from multiple vendors including Hewlett-Packard, McAfee, Symantec and IBM that use 4.x and 5.x versions of JBoss. That vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2013-4810, allows unauthenticated attackers to install an arbitrary application on JBoss deployments that expose the EJBInvokerServlet or JMXInvokerServlet.
Researchers from security firm Imperva have recently detected an increase in attacks against JBoss servers that used Micalizzi's exploit to install the original pwn.jsp shell, but also a more complex Web shell called JspSpy.
Over 200 sites running on JBoss servers, including some that belong to governments and universities have been hacked and infected with these Web shell applications, said, director of security strategy at Imperva.
In a 2011 presentation about the multiple ways in which unsecured JBoss installations can be attacked, security researchers from Matasano Security estimated, based on a Google search for certain strings, that there were around 7,300 potentially vulnerable servers.
According to Shteiman, the number of JBoss servers with management interfaces exposed to the Internet has more than tripled since then, reaching over 23,000.
One reason for this increase is probably that people have not fully understood the risks associated with this issue when it was discussed in the past and continue to deploy insecure JBoss installations, Shteiman said. Also, some vendors ship products with insecure JBoss configurations, like the products vulnerable to Micalizzi's exploit, he said.
Products vulnerable to CVE-2013-4810 include McAfee Web Reporter 5.2.1, HP ProCurve Manager (PCM) 3.20 and 4.0, HP PCM+ 3.20 and 4.0, HP Identity Driven Manager (IDM) 4.0, Symantec Workspace Streaming 7.5.0.493 and IBM TRIRIGA. However, products from other vendors that have not yet been identified could also be vulnerable.
The Red Hat security team has also been aware of this issue affecting certain versions of the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, Web Platform and BRMS Platform since 2012 when it tracked the vulnerability as CVE-2012-0874. The issue has been addressed and current versions of JBoss Enterprise Platforms based on JBoss AS 4.x and 5.x are no longer vulnerable, the team said.
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