CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-37181

Deserialization of Untrusted Data

Published: Sep 14, 2021 | Modified: Sep 24, 2021
CVSS 3.x
10
CRITICAL
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/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

A vulnerability has been identified in Cerberus DMS V4.0 (All versions), Cerberus DMS V4.1 (All versions), Cerberus DMS V4.2 (All versions), Cerberus DMS V5.0 (All versions < v5.0 QU1), Desigo CC Compact V4.0 (All versions), Desigo CC Compact V4.1 (All versions), Desigo CC Compact V4.2 (All versions), Desigo CC Compact V5.0 (All versions < V5.0 QU1), Desigo CC V4.0 (All versions), Desigo CC V4.1 (All versions), Desigo CC V4.2 (All versions), Desigo CC V5.0 (All versions < V5.0 QU1). The application deserialises untrusted data without sufficient validations, that could result in an arbitrary deserialization. This could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute code in the affected system. The CCOM communication component used for Windows App / Click-Once and IE Web / XBAP client connectivity are affected by the vulnerability.

Weakness

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

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Cerberus_dms Siemens 4.0 (including) 4.0 (including)
Cerberus_dms Siemens 4.1 (including) 4.1 (including)
Cerberus_dms Siemens 4.2 (including) 4.2 (including)
Cerberus_dms Siemens 5.0 (including) 5.0 (including)
Desigo_cc Siemens 4.0 (including) 4.0 (including)
Desigo_cc Siemens 4.1 (including) 4.1 (including)
Desigo_cc Siemens 4.2 (including) 4.2 (including)
Desigo_cc Siemens 5.0 (including) 5.0 (including)
Desigo_cc_compact Siemens 4.0 (including) 4.0 (including)
Desigo_cc_compact Siemens 4.1 (including) 4.1 (including)
Desigo_cc_compact Siemens 4.2 (including) 4.2 (including)
Desigo_cc_compact Siemens 5.0 (including) 5.0 (including)

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