Vulnerabilities > CVE-2019-16941 - XML Injection (aka Blind XPath Injection) vulnerability in NSA Ghidra

047910
CVSS 9.8 - CRITICAL
Attack vector
NETWORK
Attack complexity
LOW
Privileges required
NONE
Confidentiality impact
HIGH
Integrity impact
HIGH
Availability impact
HIGH
network
low complexity
nsa
CWE-91
critical
NVD
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2024-11-21

Summary

NSA Ghidra through 9.0.4, when experimental mode is enabled, allows arbitrary code execution if the Read XML Files feature of Bit Patterns Explorer is used with a modified XML document. This occurs in Features/BytePatterns/src/main/java/ghidra/bitpatterns/info/FileBitPatternInfoReader.java. An attack could start with an XML document that was originally created by DumpFunctionPatternInfoScript but then directly modified by an attacker (for example, to make a java.lang.Runtime.exec call).

Vulnerable Configurations

Part Description Count
Application
Nsa
6

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

  • XML Injection
    An attacker utilizes crafted XML user-controllable input to probe, attack, and inject data into the XML database, using techniques similar to SQL injection. The user-controllable input can allow for unauthorized viewing of data, bypassing authentication or the front-end application for direct XML database access, and possibly altering database information.
  • XPath Injection
    An attacker can craft special user-controllable input consisting of XPath expressions to inject the XML database and bypass authentication or glean information that he normally would not be able to. XPath Injection enables an attacker to talk directly to the XML database, thus bypassing the application completely. XPath Injection results from the failure of an application to properly sanitize input used as part of dynamic XPath expressions used to query an XML database. In order to successfully inject XML and retrieve information from a database, an attacker:

References