A WebLogic Vulnerability Highlights the Path-Based Authorization Dilemma

A WebLogic Vulnerability Highlights the Path-Based Authorization Dilemma
A WebLogic server vulnerability fixed by the October CPU has come under active exploitation after a Vietnamese language blog post detailed the steps needed to bypass authentication and achieve remote code execution on unpatched systems. Although there have been a series of actively exploited WebLogic deserialization bugs, the exploit payload in this case immediately grabbed my attention because of how similar it is to vulnerabilities I’ve analyzed in a wide range of consumer and enterprise products.Per a tweet from @jas502n:http://x.x.x.x:7001/console/images/%252E%252E%252Fconsole.portalThe piece of this which grabbed my attention is the %252E%252E%252F. If we URL decode this string, the three %25 become % leaving %2E%2E%2F. Decoding this value again yields ../ which should be familiar as a directory traversal pattern. This URL can be used to directly access the /console/console.portal resource due to a series of errors in how the application was designed and configured. The web application is making an authorization decision based on the requested path but it is doing so without first fully decoding and canonicalizing the path. The result is that a URL can be constructed to match the pattern for a permitted resource but ultimately access a completely different resource.Over the years, I have seen this vulnerability pattern come up in quite a few different places including products from Netgear, Asus, TrendNET, Ruckus, and Citrix. The first place I remember seeing this was on Netgear when I realized that my router would treat any request ending .gif as au ..

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