Vulnerabilities > CVE-2019-8978 - Race Condition vulnerability in Ellucian products

047910
CVSS 6.8 - MEDIUM
Attack vector
NETWORK
Attack complexity
MEDIUM
Privileges required
NONE
Confidentiality impact
PARTIAL
Integrity impact
PARTIAL
Availability impact
PARTIAL

Summary

An improper authentication vulnerability can be exploited through a race condition that occurs in Ellucian Banner Web Tailor 8.8.3, 8.8.4, and 8.9 and Banner Enterprise Identity Services 8.3, 8.3.1, 8.3.2, and 8.4, in conjunction with SSO Manager. This vulnerability allows remote attackers to steal a victim's session (and cause a denial of service) by repeatedly requesting the initial Banner Web Tailor main page with the IDMSESSID cookie set to the victim's UDCID, which in the case tested is the institutional ID. During a login attempt by a victim, the attacker can leverage the race condition and will be issued the SESSID that was meant for this victim.

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

  • Leveraging Race Conditions
    This attack targets a race condition occurring when multiple processes access and manipulate the same resource concurrently and the outcome of the execution depends on the particular order in which the access takes place. The attacker can leverage a race condition by "running the race", modifying the resource and modifying the normal execution flow. For instance a race condition can occur while accessing a file, the attacker can trick the system by replacing the original file with his version and cause the system to read the malicious file.
  • Leveraging Time-of-Check and Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) Race Conditions
    This attack targets a race condition occurring between the time of check (state) for a resource and the time of use of a resource. The typical example is the file access. The attacker can leverage a file access race condition by "running the race", meaning that he would modify the resource between the first time the target program accesses the file and the time the target program uses the file. During that period of time, the attacker could do something such as replace the file and cause an escalation of privilege.