1. Affected software IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence 8.4.1 Prior versions may also be affected. "IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence delivers the complete range of BI capabilities: Reporting, Analysis, Dashboarding and Scorecards on a single, service-oriented architecture (SOA). Author, share and use reports that draw on data across all enterprise sources for better business decisions." Product link: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-in tell igence/capabilities.html 2. Vulnerability Information Class: Cross site scripting Impact: Session hijacking Rating: Less critical Remotely Exploitable: Yes Locally Exploitable: No Bugtraq ID: N/A CVE Name: N/A 3. Description of Vulnerability 3.1.1. Reflective XSS In the pathinfo parameter of the cognos.cgi can be malformed and an attacker is able to inject Javascript code. With this vulnerability in hand and attacker can inject any Javascript code he wants. In this way he can perform a session hijacking attack by sending the malformed URL to the victim. 4. Solution The official solution is: Since then there have been two fix packs released - Cognos 8 BI 8.4.1 FP1 and Cognos 8 BI 8.4.1 FP2. Testing of the IBM engineers show that the issue we identified is fixed in both of these fix packs. 5. Workaround Workarounds for this kind of vulnerabilities can be implemented through a Web Application Firewall, for example ModSecurity with the Core Rule Set (CRS). When using ModSecurity make sure you have enabled XSS protection rules. The session encryption features of suhosin PHP extension can make session hijacking attacks harder as well. 6. Timeline 01/10/2010 - Vulnerabilities discovered 09/10/2010 - First attempt to contact vendor 12/01/2011 - Public disclosure 7. Credits These vulnerabilities were discovered by Ferenc Spala and Tams Czigny (Tamas Czigany). 8. About us SecurityAngel is the vulnerability research lab of kancellar.hu. kancellar.hu is Hungary's market leading information security private limited company. The company offers full scope information security services to its customers, performs audits, delivers end-to-end security systems, tools, and solutions. Since its foundation in 2002, its revenues have increased by more than tenfold. According to the survey conducted by Deloitte, kancellar.hu was one of the 50 most dynamically developing Central European companies for two years in a row in 2008 and 2009, and one of the 500 most quickly growing companies in the EMEA region. 9. Legal notices Disclaimer: The information in the advisory is believed to be accurate at the time of publishing based on currently available information. Use of the information constitutes acceptance for use in an AS IS condition. There are no warranties with regard to this information. Neither the author nor the publisher accepts any liability for any direct, indirect, or consequential loss or damage arising from use of, or reliance on, this information. The product names used in this document are for identification purposes only. All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Regards, Spala Ferenc Information security consultant Securityangel.com