CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2012-0911

Deserialization of Untrusted Data

Published: Jul 12, 2012 | Modified: Jan 21, 2024
CVSS 3.x
9.8
CRITICAL
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.x
7.5 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

TikiWiki CMS/Groupware before 6.7 LTS and before 8.4 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary PHP code via a crafted serialized object in the (1) cookieName to lib/banners/bannerlib.php; (2) printpages or (3) printstructures parameter to (a) tiki-print_multi_pages.php or (b) tiki-print_pages.php; or (4) sendpages, (5) sendstructures, or (6) sendarticles parameter to tiki-send_objects.php, which is not properly handled when processed by the unserialize function.

Weakness

The product deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently verifying that the resulting data will be valid.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Tikiwiki_cms/groupware Tiki * *
Tikiwiki_cms/groupware Tiki * *

Extended Description

It is often convenient to serialize objects for communication or to save them for later use. However, deserialized data or code can often be modified without using the provided accessor functions if it does not use cryptography to protect itself. Furthermore, any cryptography would still be client-side security – which is a dangerous security assumption. Data that is untrusted can not be trusted to be well-formed. When developers place no restrictions on “gadget chains,” or series of instances and method invocations that can self-execute during the deserialization process (i.e., before the object is returned to the caller), it is sometimes possible for attackers to leverage them to perform unauthorized actions, like generating a shell.

Potential Mitigations

  • Make fields transient to protect them from deserialization.
  • An attempt to serialize and then deserialize a class containing transient fields will result in NULLs where the transient data should be. This is an excellent way to prevent time, environment-based, or sensitive variables from being carried over and used improperly.

References