Vulnerabilities > CVE-2020-1955 - Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in Apache Couchdb 3.0.0
Attack vector
NETWORK Attack complexity
MEDIUM Privileges required
NONE Confidentiality impact
PARTIAL Integrity impact
PARTIAL Availability impact
PARTIAL Summary
CouchDB version 3.0.0 shipped with a new configuration setting that governs access control to the entire database server called `require_valid_user_except_for_up`. It was meant as an extension to the long standing setting `require_valid_user`, which in turn requires that any and all requests to CouchDB will have to be made with valid credentials, effectively forbidding any anonymous requests. The new `require_valid_user_except_for_up` is an off-by-default setting that was meant to allow requiring valid credentials for all endpoints except for the `/_up` endpoint. However, the implementation of this made an error that lead to not enforcing credentials on any endpoint, when enabled. CouchDB versions 3.0.1[1] and 3.1.0[2] fix this issue.
Vulnerable Configurations
| Part | Description | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Application | 1 |
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- Restful Privilege Elevation Rest uses standard HTTP (Get, Put, Delete) style permissions methods, but these are not necessarily correlated generally with back end programs. Strict interpretation of HTTP get methods means that these HTTP Get services should not be used to delete information on the server, but there is no access control mechanism to back up this logic. This means that unless the services are properly ACL'd and the application's service implementation are following these guidelines then an HTTP request can easily execute a delete or update on the server side. The attacker identifies a HTTP Get URL such as http://victimsite/updateOrder, which calls out to a program to update orders on a database or other resource. The URL is not idempotent so the request can be submitted multiple times by the attacker, additionally, the attacker may be able to exploit the URL published as a Get method that actually performs updates (instead of merely retrieving data). This may result in malicious or inadvertent altering of data on the server.
Nessus
| NASL family | Databases |
| NASL id | COUCHDB_3_1_0.NASL |
| description | According to its banner, the version of CouchDB running on the remote host is 3.x prior to 3.0.1. It is, therefore, potentially affected by a privilege escalation which could allow users to access endpoints which should require authentication. Note that Nessus did not actually test for these flaws but instead, has relied on the version in CouchDB |
| last seen | 2020-06-06 |
| modified | 2020-05-28 |
| plugin id | 136945 |
| published | 2020-05-28 |
| reporter | This script is Copyright (C) 2020 and is owned by Tenable, Inc. or an Affiliate thereof. |
| source | https://www.tenable.com/plugins/nessus/136945 |
| title | Apache CouchDB 3.x < 3.0.1 Privilege Escalation |