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Security Bulletin: Due to use of pac4j, IBM Cloud PAK for Watson AI Ops is vulnerable to token bypass (CVE-2021-44878)

Security Bulletin


Summary

If an OpenID Connect provider supports the "none" algorithm (i.e., tokens with no signature), pac4j v5.3.0 (and prior) does not refuse it without an explicit configuration on its side or for the "idtoken" response type which is not secure and violates the OpenID Core Specification. The "none" algorithm does not require any signature verification when validating the ID tokens, which allows the attacker to bypass the token validation by injecting a malformed ID token using "none" as the value of "alg" key in the header with an empty signature value.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID:   CVE-2021-44878
DESCRIPTION:   pac4j could allow a remote attacker to bypass security restrictions, caused by improper validation for ID Tokens with "none" algorithm. By injecting a specially-crafted ID token using "none" as the value of "alg" key, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to bypass the token validation.
CVSS Base score: 7.5
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/216856 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N)

Affected Products and Versions

Affected Product(s)Version(s)
IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps3.x

Remediation/Fixes

Address the vulnerabilities now for all affected products/versions listed above by installing Fix:
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cloud-paks/cloud-pak-watson-aiops/3.4.2?topic=upgrading

Workarounds and Mitigations

None

Get Notified about Future Security Bulletins

References

Off

Change History

12 Sep 2022: Initial Publication

*The CVSS Environment Score is customer environment specific and will ultimately impact the Overall CVSS Score. Customers can evaluate the impact of this vulnerability in their environments by accessing the links in the Reference section of this Security Bulletin.

Disclaimer

Review the IBM security bulletin disclaimer and definitions regarding your responsibilities for assessing potential impact of security vulnerabilities to your environment.

Document Location

Worldwide

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Document Information

Modified date:
14 September 2022

Initial Publish date:
12 September 2022

UID

ibm16620343