CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2012-0037

Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference

Published: Jun 17, 2012 | Modified: Feb 15, 2024
CVSS 3.x
6.5
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CVSS 2.x
4.3 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
RedHat/V2
6.8 IMPORTANT
AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

Redland Raptor (aka libraptor) before 2.0.7, as used by OpenOffice 3.3 and 3.4 Beta, LibreOffice before 3.4.6 and 3.5.x before 3.5.1, and other products, allows user-assisted remote attackers to read arbitrary files via a crafted XML external entity (XXE) declaration and reference in an RDF document.

Weakness

The product processes an XML document that can contain XML entities with URIs that resolve to documents outside of the intended sphere of control, causing the product to embed incorrect documents into its output.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Raptor Librdf * 2.0.7 (excluding)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 RedHat openoffice.org-1:3.1.1-19.10.el5_8.1 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 RedHat raptor-0:1.4.18-5.el6_2.1 *
Libreoffice Ubuntu upstream *
Openoffice.org Ubuntu hardy *
Openoffice.org Ubuntu maverick *
Raptor Ubuntu hardy *
Raptor Ubuntu lucid *
Raptor Ubuntu maverick *
Raptor Ubuntu natty *
Raptor Ubuntu oneiric *
Raptor Ubuntu precise *
Raptor Ubuntu quantal *
Raptor Ubuntu upstream *
Raptor2 Ubuntu precise *
Raptor2 Ubuntu upstream *

Extended Description

XML documents optionally contain a Document Type Definition (DTD), which, among other features, enables the definition of XML entities. It is possible to define an entity by providing a substitution string in the form of a URI. The XML parser can access the contents of this URI and embed these contents back into the XML document for further processing. By submitting an XML file that defines an external entity with a file:// URI, an attacker can cause the processing application to read the contents of a local file. For example, a URI such as “file:///c:/winnt/win.ini” designates (in Windows) the file C:\Winnt\win.ini, or file:///etc/passwd designates the password file in Unix-based systems. Using URIs with other schemes such as http://, the attacker can force the application to make outgoing requests to servers that the attacker cannot reach directly, which can be used to bypass firewall restrictions or hide the source of attacks such as port scanning. Once the content of the URI is read, it is fed back into the application that is processing the XML. This application may echo back the data (e.g. in an error message), thereby exposing the file contents.

Potential Mitigations

References