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The Art of Responding to Advisories, Responsible Patching, and Transparency with Users

Recently, I communicated 3 serious security vulnerabilities that affected major a Java-based CMS that powers.

I sent a message via e-mail, and they quickly released a “hot fix” that was merely hiding the vulnerable files behind their authentication system.

The reason this is not an effective way to protect your digital applications is because an authenticated user is the highest-profile target in a digital attack. If someone were to exploit these vulnerabilities, it would most likely be through a spear-phishing scheme.

What was most surprising was that none of these 3 security vulnerabilities were addressed in their change log, and the most recent post that stated “vulnerability” was a full major version ago.

So, what does a security researcher do at this point?

Let’s try getting them on the phone and scheduling a time to work through proper remediation.

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dotCMS v5.1.1 Open Redirect Vulnerability

dotCMS v5.1.1 suffers from an Open Redirect Vulnerability, in addition to many other vulnerabilities that I am still verifying.

The following URL is a proof-of-concept that requires a user to be logged in. Simply login to the demo before visiting the supplied POC.

Logging into the demo requires you to go to https://demo.dotcms.com/dotAdmin and log in with the demo credentials (username: [email protected] password: admin).

POC link: https://demo.dotcms.com/html/portlet/ext/common/page_preview_popup.jsp?hostname=google.com/test.html

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dotCMS v5.1.1 HTML Injection & XSS Vulnerability

dotCMS v5.1.1 suffers from an HTML injection and XSS vulnerability, in addition to many other vulnerabilities that I am still verifying.

Here’s a screenshot of HTML injection:

To reproduce this vulnerability, simply go to https://dotcms.com/dotAdmin/ and login with their demo credentials (username: [email protected] password: admin) and then visit the following URL:

https://demo.dotcms.com/html/portlet/ext/files/edit_text_inc.jsp?referer=%22%3EHTML%20Code%20Injection%20Here%20and%20XSS%20Vulnerability%20%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E

There are more unconfirmed vulnerabilities in dotCMS.

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dotCMS v5.1.1 – Vulnerable Open Source Dependencies

dotCMS v5.1.1 suffers from several vulnerabilities due to the reliance on open source dependencies with publicly disclosed issues.

These vulnerabilities are listed below:

Scanning open source dependencies of dotCMS_5.1.1
 
/ROOT/html/js/scriptaculous/prototype.js
 
↳ prototypejs 1.5.0
prototypejs 1.5.0 has known vulnerabilities: severity: high; CVE: CVE-2008-7220; http://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2008-7220/ http://prototypejs.org/2008/01/25/prototype-1-6-0-2-bug-fixes-performance-improvements-and-security/
 
ROOT/assets/3/6/36c22c5d-c813-4869-a4b7-fcc10a74e8b6/fileAsset/jquery.min.js
 
↳ jquery 1.9.1
jquery 1.9.1 has known vulnerabilities: severity: medium; issue: 2432, summary: 3rd party CORS request may execute, CVE: CVE-2015-9251; https://github.com/jquery/jquery/issues/2432 http://blog.jquery.com/2016/01/08/jquery-2-2-and-1-12-released/ https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-9251 http://research.insecurelabs.org/jquery/test/ severity: medium; CVE: CVE-2015-9251, issue: 11974, summary: parseHTML() executes scripts in event handlers; https://bugs.jquery.com/ticket/11974 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-9251 http://research.insecurelabs.org/jquery/test/ severity: low; CVE: CVE-2019-11358, summary: jQuery before 3.4.0, as used in Drupal, Backdrop CMS, and other products, mishandles jQuery.extend(true, {}, …) because of Object.prototype pollution; https://blog.jquery.com/2019/04/10/jquery-3-4-0-released/ https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-11358 https://github.com/jquery/jquery/commit/753d591aea698e57d6db58c9f722cd0808619b1b
 
ROOT/assets/5/1/515cba4e-ac64-4523-b683-8e38329e7f46/fileAsset/bootstrap.min.js
↳ bootstrap 3.2.0
bootstrap 3.2.0 has known vulnerabilities: severity: high; issue: 28236, summary: XSS in data-template, data-content and data-title properties of tooltip/popover, CVE: CVE-2019-8331; https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/28236 severity: medium; issue: 20184, summary: XSS in data-target property of scrollspy, CVE: CVE-2018-14041; https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/20184 severity: medium; issue: 20184, summary: XSS in collapse data-parent attribute, CVE: CVE-2018-14040; https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/20184 severity: medium; issue: 20184, summary: XSS in data-container property of tooltip, CVE: CVE-2018-14042; https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/20184
 
ROOT/assets/9/9/99c7ffe7-e1c2-407f-85b7-ec483dbcf6f1/fileAsset/jquery.min.js
↳ jquery 3.3.1
jquery 3.3.1 has known vulnerabilities: severity: low; CVE: CVE-2019-11358, summary: jQuery before 3.4.0, as used in Drupal, Backdrop CMS, and other products, mishandles jQuery.extend(true, {}, …) because of Object.prototype pollution; https://blog.jquery.com/2019/04/10/jquery-3-4-0-released/ https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-11358 https://github.com/jquery/jquery/commit/753d591aea698e57d6db58c9f722cd0808619b1b
 
ROOT/assets/f/6/f6fa6b13-3a96-4cbf-9a75-19a40137f05a/fileAsset/jquery.min.js
 
↳ jquery 1.9.1
jquery 1.9.1 has known vulnerabilities: severity: medium; issue: 2432, summary: 3rd party CORS request may execute, CVE: CVE-2015-9251; https://github.com/jquery/jquery/issues/2432 http://blog.jquery.com/2016/01/08/jquery-2-2-and-1-12-released/ https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-9251 http://research.insecurelabs.org/jquery/test/ severity: medium; CVE: CVE-2015-9251, issue: 11974, summary: parseHTML() executes scripts in event handlers; https://bugs.jquery.com/ticket/11974 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-9251 http://research.insecurelabs.org/jquery/test/ severity: low; CVE: CVE-2019-11358, summary: jQuery before 3.4.0, as used in Drupal, Backdrop CMS, and other products, mishandles jQuery.extend(true, {}, …) because of Object.prototype pollution; https://blog.jquery.com/2019/04/10/jquery-3-4-0-released/ https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-11358 https://github.com/jquery/jquery/commit/753d591aea698e57d6db58c9f722cd0808619b1b
 
ROOT/assets/4/a/4a5a727f-369b-49e0-bff5-42d9efb4ba90/fileAsset/jquery-2.1.1.min.js
 
↳ jquery 2.1.1.min
jquery 2.1.1.min has known vulnerabilities: severity: medium; issue: 2432, summary: 3rd party CORS request may execute, CVE: CVE-2015-9251; https://github.com/jquery/jquery/issues/2432 http://blog.jquery.com/2016/01/08/jquery-2-2-and-1-12-released/ https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-9251 http://research.insecurelabs.org/jquery/test/ severity: medium; CVE: CVE-2015-9251, issue: 11974, summary: parseHTML() executes scripts in event handlers; https://bugs.jquery.com/ticket/11974 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-9251 http://research.insecurelabs.org/jquery/test/ severity: low; CVE: CVE-2019-11358, summary: jQuery before 3.4.0, as used in Drupal, Backdrop CMS, and other products, mishandles jQuery.extend(true, {}, …) because of Object.prototype pollution; https://blog.jquery.com/2019/04/10/jquery-3-4-0-released/ https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-11358 https://github.com/jquery/jquery/commit/753d591aea698e57d6db58c9f722cd0808619b1b
 
ROOT/html/js/dojo/custom-build/dojo/dojo.js
 
↳ dojo 1.8.6
dojo 1.8.6 has known vulnerabilities: severity: medium; PR: 307; https://github.com/dojo/dojo/pull/307 https://dojotoolkit.org/blog/dojo-1-14-released
 
ROOT/html/js/tinymce/js/tinymce/tinymce.min.js
 
↳ tinyMCE 4.1.6
tinyMCE 4.1.6 has known vulnerabilities: severity: medium; summary: xss issues with media plugin not properly filtering out some script attributes.; https://www.tinymce.com/docs/changelog/ severity: medium; summary: FIXED so script elements gets removed by default to prevent possible XSS issues in default config implementations; https://www.tinymce.com/docs/changelog/ severity: medium; summary: FIXED so links with xlink:href attributes are filtered correctly to prevent XSS.; https://www.tinymce.com/docs/changelog/