Vulnerability Note VU#566390

BEA WebLogic Server fails to properly validate certificate chains

Overview

There is a vulnerability in BEA WebLogic Server in which certificate chains rejected by the custom trust manager could still be accepted by the server.

I. Description

BEA Systems describes WebLogic Server as "an industrial-strength application infrastructure for developing, integrating, securing, and managing distributed Java applications." The WebLogic Server allows for the configuration of custom trust managers. This feature provides the ability to override certain validation errors when evaluating a client's certificate. There is a vulnerability in the way the WebLogic server validates certificate chains that could allow a remote attacker to impersonate a user or remote server.

According to the BEA Security Advisory,

This vulnerability affects sites using custom trust managers. This vulnerability can occur when WebLogic Server is validating a certificate chain. It occurs under the following circumstances:

During an inbound 2-way SSL request (when the user's certificate is validated).
During an outbound SSL request (when the remote server's certificate chain is validated).

If a certificate chain is validated and accepted but the custom trust manager rejects the chain, the certificate chain may still be accepted. This circumstance allows an attacker using two-way SSL to impersonate a user. When outbound SSL is being used, an attacker can impersonate a remote server.

The BEA Security Advisory states that the following versions of WebLogic Server and Express are affected by this vulnerability:

WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express 8.1 released through Service Pack 2, on all platforms
WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express 7.0 released through Service Pack 4, on all platforms

II. Impact

A remote attacker could impersonate a user or remote server.

III. Solution

Upgrade

WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express version 8.1

ftp://ftpna.beasys.com/pub/releases/security/CR129371_81sp2.jar

WebLogic Server version 8.1 Service Pack 3 is also supported with this patch.

WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express version 7.0

1. Upgrade to WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express version 7.0 Service Pack 5.

Systems Affected

Vendor	Status	Date Notified	Date Updated
BEA Systems Inc.	Vulnerable	22-Apr-2004

References

http://dev2dev.bea.com/resourcelibrary/advisoriesnotifications/BEA04_54.00.jsp
http://secunia.com/advisories/11358/
http://securitytracker.com/alerts/2004/Apr/1009765.html
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs81/secintro/concepts.html#1097287

Credit

This vulnerability was reported by BEA Systems Inc.

This document was written by Damon Morda.

Other Information

Date Public:	2004-04-14
Date First Published:	2004-04-22
Date Last Updated:	2004-04-22
CERT Advisory:
CVE-ID(s):
NVD-ID(s):
US-CERT Technical Alerts:
Metric:	5.20
Document Revision:	16

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