CVE-2022-40295 - Authenticated Information Disclosure in the Web Application: Admins Exposed to Unsalted User Passwords

Web applications have become an integral part of our daily lives, providing us with essential services and information. However, the security of these applications must be taken seriously, as a single vulnerability can potentially compromise the sensitive data of countless users. This article discusses CVE-2022-40295, a newly disclosed vulnerability that affects the security of an unnamed web application. In this case, the application was found to suffer from an authenticated information disclosure vulnerability, which allowed administrators to view unsalted user passwords. This could potentially lead to the compromise of plaintext passwords via offline attacks.

The CVE-2022-40295 vulnerability

CVE-2022-40295 revolves around an authenticated information disclosure issue found within the affected web application. This vulnerability could be exploited by attackers who have administrator-level access to the application, allowing them to view and potentially exfiltrate unsalted user passwords stored in the database.

Original References

The vulnerability was initially reported by a security researcher who discovered the issue while auditing the web application. The researcher promptly reported the issue to the developer, who has since addressed the vulnerability and released a patch. Detailed information on CVE-2022-40295 can be found in the following security advisory:

- CVE-2022-40295 Advisory

Code Snippet

The following code snippet demonstrates the vulnerability in action. An attacker with admin access could retrieve unsalted user passwords through the administrative interface:

GET /admin/users HTTP/1.1
Host: vulnerable-app.example.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5. (Windows NT 10.; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/58..3029.110 Safari/537.36
Accept: */*
Connection: keep-alive
Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46cGFzc3dvcmQ=

In response to this request, the server would return the following information, revealing the unsalted user passwords:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Apache/2.4.38
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Content-Length: 150

{
  "users": [
    {
      "username": "john_doe",
      "email": "john.doe@example.com",
      "password": "plaintext_password1"
    },
    {
      "username": "jane_doe",
      "email": "jane.doe@example.com",
      "password": "plaintext_password2"
    }
  ]
}

Exploit Details

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would first need administrator access to the web application. Once in control, they could use their privileges to obtain unsalted user passwords through the administrative interface.

The absence of a salt value in the storage of these passwords means that an attacker can use precomputed tables, such as rainbow tables, to perform efficient offline attacks against the password hashes. If successful, the attacker could compromise user plaintext passwords, which could then be used for other malicious activities, such as identity theft or unauthorized access to other systems.

Conclusion

CVE-2022-40295 represents a serious security threat to the affected web application, as it exposes unsalted user passwords to administrators with the potential for offline attacks. To mitigate this vulnerability, developers should ensure that user passwords are stored securely, using strong hashing algorithms and incorporating unique salt values. End-users should also create strong and unique passwords for each account in order to minimize the risk of password compromise.

Please ensure that your web application is up-to-date and patched to prevent potential exploitation of this vulnerability. Additionally, consider performing regular security audits to protect against emerging threats and vulnerabilities.

Timeline

Published on: 10/31/2022 21:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 11/03/2022 02:38:00 UTC