IBM Cognos Controller 10.3.0, 10.3.1, 10.4.0, and 10.4.1 could allow an authenticated user to obtain sensitive information due to easy to guess session identifier names. IBM X-Force ID: 162658.
Weakness
The product uses insufficiently random numbers or values in a security context that depends on unpredictable numbers.
Affected Software
| Name |
Vendor |
Start Version |
End Version |
| Cognos_controller |
Ibm |
10.3.0 (including) |
10.3.0 (including) |
| Cognos_controller |
Ibm |
10.3.1 (including) |
10.3.1 (including) |
| Cognos_controller |
Ibm |
10.4.0 (including) |
10.4.0 (including) |
| Cognos_controller |
Ibm |
10.4.1 (including) |
10.4.1 (including) |
Potential Mitigations
- Use a well-vetted algorithm that is currently considered to be strong by experts in the field, and select well-tested implementations with adequate length seeds.
- In general, if a pseudo-random number generator is not advertised as being cryptographically secure, then it is probably a statistical PRNG and should not be used in security-sensitive contexts.
- Pseudo-random number generators can produce predictable numbers if the generator is known and the seed can be guessed. A 256-bit seed is a good starting point for producing a “random enough” number.
References