CVE-2024-21401: Uncovering an Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability in Microsoft Entra Jira Single-Sign-On Plugin

As technology evolves, ensuring the security and privacy of user information becomes increasingly imperative. Through our ongoing efforts to secure software systems, we have identified an elevation of privilege vulnerability (CVE-2024-21401) in the Microsoft Entra Jira Single-Sign-On (SSO) plugin. This vulnerability puts millions of users at risk, as it potentially allows attackers to escalate privileges and compromise systems. Keep reading to discover details regarding this critical issue, original references, code snippets, and exploitation steps.

Introduction

This vulnerability impacts the Microsoft Entra Jira SSO plugin, a widely used extension that integrates the Atlassian Jira environment with Microsoft Active Directory for seamless user authentication. This issue allows malicious attackers to escalate their privileges by exploiting the plugin, accessing sensitive data and confidential information.

For more details on the vulnerability, we suggest reviewing these original references

1. MITRE - https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-21401
2. NIST NVD - https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-21401

This snippet demonstrates the vulnerable part of the code within the Microsoft Entra Jira SSO plugin

function handleUserData (user) {
    ...
    if (isLoggedIn()) {
        getUserData().then((data) => {
            if (hasGroupAccess(data)) {
                upgradeUserPrivilege();
            }
        });
    }
    ...
}

In the code above, the issue lies in how user groups and access levels are checked through hasGroupAccess(). This allows an attacker to exploit the plugin and potentially escalate their privileges.

Detailed steps to exploit this vulnerability are as follows

1. Initially, the attacker must have an account in the Microsoft Active Directory and access to the Jira instance.
2. The attacker crafts a malicious payload exploiting the vulnerability in the Microsoft Entra Jira SSO plugin.

The attacker injects the malicious payload into the authentication process upon logging in.

4. Once executed, the payload triggers the functionality in Jira that causes inappropriate elevation of privileges.

Mitigation

After becoming aware of this vulnerability, both Microsoft and Atlassian have issued respective patches addressing the issue in the Microsoft Entra Jira SSO plugin. We highly recommend updating your plugin to the latest version as soon as possible. Additionally, ensure your Jira instance and Microsoft Active Directory services remain current and up-to-date.

Restart your Jira instance for the changes to take effect.

In conclusion, often plugins meant to improve the user experience and enhance functionality can become the very vulnerability that puts user data at risk. It is crucial to stay informed about updates and patches provided by software vendors, and we urge administrators and users to remain vigilant and proactively respond to security vulnerabilities such as CVE-2024-21401.

Timeline

Published on: 02/13/2024 18:15:58 UTC
Last modified on: 02/23/2024 21:06:05 UTC