CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-4258

Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information

Published: Dec 19, 2022 | Modified: May 17, 2024
CVSS 3.x
7.5
HIGH
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

A vulnerability was found in whohas. It has been rated as problematic. This issue affects some unknown processing of the component Package Information Handler. The manipulation leads to cleartext transmission of sensitive information. The attack may be initiated remotely. The real existence of this vulnerability is still doubted at the moment. The name of the patch is 667c3e2e9178f15c23d7918b5db25cd0792c8472. It is recommended to apply a patch to fix this issue. The associated identifier of this vulnerability is VDB-216251. NOTE: Most sources redirect to the encrypted site which limits the possibilities of an attack.

Weakness

The product transmits sensitive or security-critical data in cleartext in a communication channel that can be sniffed by unauthorized actors.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Whohas Whohas_project * 2021-11-01 (excluding)
Whohas Ubuntu bionic *
Whohas Ubuntu kinetic *
Whohas Ubuntu lunar *
Whohas Ubuntu mantic *
Whohas Ubuntu trusty *
Whohas Ubuntu xenial *

Extended Description

Many communication channels can be “sniffed” (monitored) by adversaries during data transmission. For example, in networking, packets can traverse many intermediary nodes from the source to the destination, whether across the internet, an internal network, the cloud, etc. Some actors might have privileged access to a network interface or any link along the channel, such as a router, but they might not be authorized to collect the underlying data. As a result, network traffic could be sniffed by adversaries, spilling security-critical data. Applicable communication channels are not limited to software products. Applicable channels include hardware-specific technologies such as internal hardware networks and external debug channels, supporting remote JTAG debugging. When mitigations are not applied to combat adversaries within the product’s threat model, this weakness significantly lowers the difficulty of exploitation by such adversaries. When full communications are recorded or logged, such as with a packet dump, an adversary could attempt to obtain the dump long after the transmission has occurred and try to “sniff” the cleartext from the recorded communications in the dump itself.

Potential Mitigations

References