Vulnerabilities > CVE-2022-41933 - Insufficiently Protected Credentials vulnerability in Xwiki

047910
CVSS 6.5 - MEDIUM
Attack vector
NETWORK
Attack complexity
LOW
Privileges required
NONE
Confidentiality impact
HIGH
Integrity impact
NONE
Availability impact
NONE
network
low complexity
xwiki
CWE-522
NVD
Published: 2022-11-23
Updated: 2023-07-10

Summary

XWiki Platform is a generic wiki platform offering runtime services for applications built on top of it. When the `reset a forgotten password` feature of XWiki was used, the password was then stored in plain text in database. This only concerns XWiki 13.1RC1 and newer versions. Note that it only concerns the reset password feature available from the "Forgot your password" link in the login view: the features allowing a user to change their password, or for an admin to change a user password are not impacted. This vulnerability is particularly dangerous in combination with other vulnerabilities allowing to perform data leak of personal data from users, such as GHSA-599v-w48h-rjrm. Note that this vulnerability only concerns the users of the main wiki: in case of farms, the users registered on subwiki are not impacted thanks to a bug we discovered when investigating this. The problem has been patched in version 14.6RC1, 14.4.3 and 13.10.8. The patch involves a migration of the impacted users as well as the history of the page, to ensure no password remains in plain text in the database. This migration also involves to inform the users about the possible disclosure of their passwords: by default, two emails are automatically sent to the impacted users. A first email to inform about the possibility that their password have been leaked, and a second email using the reset password feature to ask them to set a new password. It's also possible for administrators to set some properties for the migration: it's possible to decide if the user password should be reset (default) or if the passwords should be kept but only hashed. Note that in the first option, the users won't be able to login anymore until they set a new password if they were impacted. Note that in both options, mails will be sent to users to inform them and encourage them to change their passwords.

Vulnerable Configurations

Part Description Count
Application
Xwiki
37

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

  • Session Sidejacking
    Session sidejacking takes advantage of an unencrypted communication channel between a victim and target system. The attacker sniffs traffic on a network looking for session tokens in unencrypted traffic. Once a session token is captured, the attacker performs malicious actions by using the stolen token with the targeted application to impersonate the victim. This attack is a specific method of session hijacking, which is exploiting a valid session token to gain unauthorized access to a target system or information. Other methods to perform a session hijacking are session fixation, cross-site scripting, or compromising a user or server machine and stealing the session token.
  • Lifting credential(s)/key material embedded in client distributions (thick or thin)
    An attacker examines a target application's code or configuration files to find credential or key material that has been embedded within the application or its files. Many services require authentication with their users for the various purposes including billing, access control or attribution. Some client applications store the user's authentication credentials or keys to accelerate the login process. Some clients may have built-in keys or credentials (in which case the server is authenticating with the client, rather than the user). If the attacker is able to locate where this information is stored, they may be able to retrieve these credentials. The attacker could then use these stolen credentials to impersonate the user or client, respectively, in interactions with the service or use stolen keys to eavesdrop on nominally secure communications between the client and server.
  • Password Recovery Exploitation
    An attacker may take advantage of the application feature to help users recover their forgotten passwords in order to gain access into the system with the same privileges as the original user. Generally password recovery schemes tend to be weak and insecure. Most of them use only one security question . For instance, mother's maiden name tends to be a fairly popular one. Unfortunately in many cases this information is not very hard to find, especially if the attacker knows the legitimate user. These generic security questions are also re-used across many applications, thus making them even more insecure. An attacker could for instance overhear a coworker talking to a bank representative at the work place and supplying their mother's maiden name for verification purposes. An attacker can then try to log in into one of the victim's accounts, click on "forgot password" and there is a good chance that the security question there will be to provide mother's maiden name. A weak password recovery scheme totally undermines the effectiveness of a strong password scheme.

References