The Versa Director offers REST APIs for orchestration and management. By design, certain APIs, such as the login screen, banner display, and device registration, do not require authentication. However, it was discovered that for Directors directly connected to the Internet, one of these APIs can be exploited by injecting invalid arguments into a GET request, potentially exposing the authentication tokens of other currently logged-in users. These tokens can then be used to invoke additional APIs on port 9183. This exploit does not disclose any username or password information.
Currently, there are no workarounds in Versa Director. However, if there is Web Application Firewall (WAF) or API Gateway fronting the Versa Director, it can be used to block access to the URLs of vulnerable API. /vnms/devicereg/device/* (on ports 9182 & 9183) and /versa/vnms/devicereg/device/* (on port 443). Versa recommends that Directors be upgraded to one of the remediated software versions. This vulnerability is not exploitable on Versa Directors not exposed to the Internet.We have validated that no Versa-hosted head ends have been affected by this vulnerability. Please contact Versa Technical Support or Versa account team for any further assistance.
Weakness
The product does not perform any authentication for functionality that requires a provable user identity or consumes a significant amount of resources.
Extended Description
As data is migrated to the cloud, if access does not require authentication, it can be easier for attackers to access the data from anywhere on the Internet.
Potential Mitigations
- Divide the software into anonymous, normal, privileged, and administrative areas. Identify which of these areas require a proven user identity, and use a centralized authentication capability.
- Identify all potential communication channels, or other means of interaction with the software, to ensure that all channels are appropriately protected. Developers sometimes perform authentication at the primary channel, but open up a secondary channel that is assumed to be private. For example, a login mechanism may be listening on one network port, but after successful authentication, it may open up a second port where it waits for the connection, but avoids authentication because it assumes that only the authenticated party will connect to the port.
- In general, if the software or protocol allows a single session or user state to persist across multiple connections or channels, authentication and appropriate credential management need to be used throughout.
- Where possible, avoid implementing custom authentication routines and consider using authentication capabilities as provided by the surrounding framework, operating system, or environment. These may make it easier to provide a clear separation between authentication tasks and authorization tasks.
- In environments such as the World Wide Web, the line between authentication and authorization is sometimes blurred. If custom authentication routines are required instead of those provided by the server, then these routines must be applied to every single page, since these pages could be requested directly.
- Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
- For example, consider using libraries with authentication capabilities such as OpenSSL or the ESAPI Authenticator [REF-45].
References