CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-0871

Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference

Published: Aug 11, 2023 | Modified: Aug 22, 2023
CVSS 3.x
6.1
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

XXE injection in /rtc/post/ endpoint in OpenMNS Horizon 31.0.8 and versions earlier than 32.0.2 on multiple platforms is vulnerable to XML external entity (XXE) injection, which can be used for instance to force Horizon to make arbitrary HTTP requests to internal and external services. The solution is to upgrade to Meridian 2023.1.6, 2022.1.19, 2021.1.30, 2020.1.38 or Horizon 32.0.2 or newer. Meridian and Horizon installation instructions state that they are intended for installation within an organizations private networks and should not be directly accessible from the Internet. OpenNMS thanks Erik Wynter and Moshe Apelbaum for reporting this issue.

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
Horizon Opennms 32.0.0 (including) 32.0.2 (excluding)
Horizon Opennms 31.0.8 (including) 31.0.8 (including)

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