When content portlets are deleted from one of the portal’s pages, all entitlements are removed for the application

Subject: Security Advisory (BEA08-192.00)
From: BEA Systems Inc.
Minor Subject: When content portlets are deleted from one of the portal’s pages, all entitlements are removed for the application
Product(s) Affected: WebLogic Portal

Threat level: Low
Under certain circumstances, an administrator of the WLP system can unintentionally remove the WLP entitlement policies on certain portlets.

Severity: Medium
This vulnerability could result in users gaining access to content portlets that are restricted.

A problem was identified that could potentially cause a security vulnerability in certain versions of WebLogic Portal. Patches and upgrades are available to correct this problem (see Section II). BEA Systems treats potential security problems with a high degree of urgency and endeavors to take appropriate steps to help ensure the security of our customers’ systems. As a result, BEA Systems strongly suggests the following actions:

I. Read the following advisory.
II. Apply the suggested action.
III. If you know of any additional users interested in future security advisories, please forward them the registration instructions included in this advisory.

I. Advisory

Under certain circumstances, an authenticated administrator can unintentionally remove the WLP entitlement policies for all similar content portlets when deleting a single instance of a content portlet.

This advisory corrects this issue by only deleting the desired portlet and its associated entitlements.

Impact and CVSS Ratings:

CVSS Severity Score: 3.6 (Low)
Attack Range (AV): Network
Attack Complexity (AC): High
Authentication Level (Au): Single
Impact Type: Partial Confidentiality and Partial Integrity
Vulnerability Type: Information Disclosure
CVSS Base Score Vector: (AV:N/AC:H/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:N)

Complete CVSS Guide: http://www.first.org/cvss/cvss-guide.html
Online Calculator: http://nvd.nist.gov/cvss.cfm?calculator&version=2

The following versions of WebLogic Portal are affected by this vulnerability

WebLogic Portal 10.0, on all platforms
WebLogic Portal 9.2 released through Maintenance Pack 1, on all platforms

II. SUGGESTED ACTION

BEA Systems strongly recommends the following course of actions.

WebLogic Portal 10.0

Upgrade to WebLogic Portal 10.0 Maintenance Pack 1

WebLogic Portal 9.2

BEA strongly suggests that customers apply the remedies recommended in all our security advisories. BEA also urges customers to apply every Service Pack as they are released. Service Packs include a roll-up of all bug fixes for each version of the product, as well as each of the prior Service Packs. Service Packs and information about them can be found at:
http://commerce.bea.com/products/weblogicplatform/weblogic_prod_fam.jsp

Note: Information about securing WebLogic Server can be found at http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs100/lockdown/intro.html. Information about securing WebLogic Portal can be found at http://edocs.bea.com/wlp/docs100/security/lockdown.html. We strongly encourage you to review this documentation to ensure your server deployment is securely configured.

III. FUTURE SECURITY COMMUNICATIONS

If there are security-related issues with BEA product, BEA Systems generally distributes an advisory and instructions with a recommended course of action. Because the security of your site, data, and code is a high priority, we are committed to generally communicating security-related issues to our customers and partners.

All previous advisories and notifications can be viewed at http://dev2dev.bea.com/advisories/

BEA Systems has established an opt-in emailing list specifically targeted for product security advisories and notifications. As a policy, if a user has opted-in to our emailing list and there is a relevant security issue with the BEA product(s) he/she is using, BEA generally distributes an advisory and instructions via email with a recommended course of action.

ADDITIONAL USERS WHO WISH TO REGISTER FOR ADVISORY DISTRIBUTION SHOULD FOLLOW THE REGISTRATION DIRECTIONS AT http://dev2dev.bea.com/advisories

IV. REPORTING SECURITY ISSUES

Security issues can be reported to BEA Systems by sending email to secalert@bea.com or by following the directions at http://dev2dev.bea.com/advisories. If BEA has validated a reported security issue, we will endeavor to assess the severity of the impact of the security issue and the likelihood of the exploitation of the vulnerability. Based on these assessments and other factors, BEA will endeavor to develop and appropriately prioritize a workaround or patch designed to reduce or eliminate the risk of the vulnerability.

If you have any questions or care to verify the authenticity of this advisory, please contact BEA Technical Support at support@bea.com

Thank you,
BEA Systems, Inc.

Security Advisories and Notifications

I. Advisory

II. SUGGESTED ACTION

III. FUTURE SECURITY COMMUNICATIONS

IV. REPORTING SECURITY ISSUES