Deserialization of Untrusted Data, Improper Input Validation vulnerability in Apache UIMA Java SDK, Apache UIMA Java SDK, Apache UIMA Java SDK, Apache UIMA Java SDK.This issue affects Apache UIMA Java SDK: before 3.5.0.
Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.5.0, which fixes the issue.
There are several locations in the code where serialized Java objects are deserialized without verifying the data. This affects in particular:
Note that the UIMA framework by default does not start any remotely accessible services (i.e. Vinci) that would be vulnerable to this issue. A user or developer would need to make an active choice to start such a service. However, users or developers may use the CasIOUtils in their own applications and services to parse serialized CAS data. They are affected by this issue unless they ensure that the data passed to CasIOUtils is not a serialized Java object.
When using Vinci or using CasIOUtils in own services/applications, the unrestricted deserialization of Java-serialized CAS files may allow arbitrary (remote) code execution.
As a remedy, it is possible to set up a global or context-specific ObjectInputFilter (cf. https://openjdk.org/jeps/290 and https://openjdk.org/jeps/415 ) if running UIMA on a Java version that supports it.
Note that Java 1.8 does not support the ObjectInputFilter, so there is no remedy when running on this out-of-support platform. An upgrade to a recent Java version is strongly recommended if you need to secure an UIMA version that is affected by this issue.
To mitigate the issue on a Java 9+ platform, you can configure a filter pattern through the jdk.serialFilter system property using a semicolon as a separator:
To allow deserializing Java-serialized binary CASes, add the classes:
To allow deserializing CPE Checkpoint data, add the following classes (and any custom classes your application uses to store its checkpoints):
Make sure to use !* as the final component to the filter pattern to disallow deserialization of any classes not listed in the pattern.
Apache UIMA 3.5.0 uses tightly scoped ObjectInputFilters when reading Java-serialized data depending on the type of data being expected. Configuring a global filter is not necessary with this version.
The product receives input or data, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the properties that are required to process the data safely and correctly.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uimaj | Apache | * | 3.5.0 (excluding) |
Input validation is a frequently-used technique for checking potentially dangerous inputs in order to ensure that the inputs are safe for processing within the code, or when communicating with other components. When software does not validate input properly, an attacker is able to craft the input in a form that is not expected by the rest of the application. This will lead to parts of the system receiving unintended input, which may result in altered control flow, arbitrary control of a resource, or arbitrary code execution. Input validation is not the only technique for processing input, however. Other techniques attempt to transform potentially-dangerous input into something safe, such as filtering (CWE-790) - which attempts to remove dangerous inputs - or encoding/escaping (CWE-116), which attempts to ensure that the input is not misinterpreted when it is included in output to another component. Other techniques exist as well (see CWE-138 for more examples.) Input validation can be applied to:
Data can be simple or structured. Structured data can be composed of many nested layers, composed of combinations of metadata and raw data, with other simple or structured data. Many properties of raw data or metadata may need to be validated upon entry into the code, such as:
Implied or derived properties of data must often be calculated or inferred by the code itself. Errors in deriving properties may be considered a contributing factor to improper input validation.
Note that “input validation” has very different meanings to different people, or within different classification schemes. Caution must be used when referencing this CWE entry or mapping to it. For example, some weaknesses might involve inadvertently giving control to an attacker over an input when they should not be able to provide an input at all, but sometimes this is referred to as input validation. Finally, it is important to emphasize that the distinctions between input validation and output escaping are often blurred, and developers must be careful to understand the difference, including how input validation is not always sufficient to prevent vulnerabilities, especially when less stringent data types must be supported, such as free-form text. Consider a SQL injection scenario in which a person’s last name is inserted into a query. The name “O’Reilly” would likely pass the validation step since it is a common last name in the English language. However, this valid name cannot be directly inserted into the database because it contains the “’” apostrophe character, which would need to be escaped or otherwise transformed. In this case, removing the apostrophe might reduce the risk of SQL injection, but it would produce incorrect behavior because the wrong name would be recorded.