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Security Advisories and Notifications

Subject: Security Advisory (BEA08-80.04)
From: BEA Systems Inc.
Minor Subject: Patches available to prevent multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities
Product(s) Affected: WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express

This security advisory (BEA08-80.04) contains the corrected remedy for this vulnerability on WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express versions, 10.0, 9.2, 9.1, 9.0, 8.1, 7.0 and 6.1. Please disregard security advisories BEA07-80.03 and its prior versions, as this advisory, BEA08-80.04 supersedes them.

Threat level: High
Although this requires careful orchestration and unintentional cooperation by a privileged user, other cross-site scripting attacks have been publicly documented and are widely known.

Severity: High
Can allow anonymous user to upgrade to administrative privileges.

Thanks to the diligence of several contributors, some areas were identified that could potentially cause a security vulnerability in certain versions of WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express. A patch is 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

Background: Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities are well documented in the industry. XSS vulnerability requires three parties:

  • A susceptible Web site.
  • A valid user of the Web site.
  • An attacker.

The attacker tricks the user (usually via misleading links on web pages or emails) to exploit the XSS vulnerability in the Web site. This allows the attacker to run arbitrary client-side (i.e. browser) scripts that execute as the identity of the valid user. Typically this is used to steal session cookies thereby allowing the attacker to impersonate the valid user. XSS vulnerabilities can arise due to bugs in the Web server or in applications running on it. This advisory resolves several possible approaches to exploiting this attack, mainly requiring access to the WebLogic Server console. In many cases, a properly locked down server will not be vulnerable to this sort of attack (see the information on lockdown in Section II).

Coding Advice: Any Web application can introduce XSS vulnerabilities. It is beyond the ability of WebLogic Server and Express to protect against this. Careful coding when programming Web applications is required to avoid these vulnerabilities. To this end, WebLogic Server and Express provide a utility class to defend against this vulnerability: weblogic.servlet.security.Utils. The Utils.encodeXSS() method will properly encode all key HTML syntax characters. The Javadoc for this method is available at:
http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs81/javadocs/weblogic/servlet/security/Utils.html

For more information, see:
http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs81/servlet/progtasks.html#160803

Caution About Existing Samples: Our samples are intended to provide a simple tutorial regarding a few specific features. They are not comprehensive guides to best practices. Many of them omit the use of the Utils.encodeXSS() method or other XSS preventative techniques in needed places and are hence vulnerable to XSS attacks.

The following versions of WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express are affected by this vulnerability

  • WebLogic Server 10.0 released through Maintenance Pack 1, on all platforms
  • WebLogic Server 9.2 released through Maintenance Pack 2, on all platforms
  • WebLogic Server 9.1 GA release, on all platforms.
  • WebLogic Server 9.0 GA release, on all platforms.
  • WebLogic Server 8.1 released through Service Pack 6, on all platforms.
  • WebLogic Server 7.0 released through Service Pack 7, on all platforms.
  • WebLogic Server 6.1 released through Service Pack 7, on all platforms.

II. SUGGESTED ACTION

BEA Systems strongly recommends the following course of actions.

WebLogic Server 10.0

  1. Upgrade to WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express 10.0 Maintenance Pack 1.

  2. Use the Smart Update tool to install the 10.0MP1 patch for CR345092.

    3. WebLogic Server 10.0 Maintenance Pack 2 will include the functionality in this patch.

WebLogic Server 9.2

  1. Upgrade to WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express 9.2 Maintenance Pack 2

  2. Use the Smart Update tool to install the 9.2MP2 patch for CR345092.

    3. WebLogic Server 9.2 Maintenance Pack 3 will include the functionality in this patch.

WebLogic Server 9.1

Use the Smart Update tool to install the 9.1 patch for CR345092.

WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express version 9.0

  1. Install the 9.0 GA Combo patch from support.bea.com by requesting Bug ID CR239280.

  2. Install the patch from:
    ftp://anonymous:dev2dev%40bea.com@ftpna.bea.com/pub/releases/security/CR358541_900.jar

  3. Place the jar for the patch at the end of the PATCH_CLASSPATH.

WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express version 8.1

  1. Upgrade to WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express 8.1 Service Pack 6.

  2. Install the patch from:
    ftp://anonymous:dev2dev%40bea.com@ftpna.bea.com/pub/releases/security/CR345092_810sp6.jar

  3. Place the jar for the patch in the CLASSPATH before the weblogic.jar file.

WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express version 7.0

  1. Upgrade to WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express 7.0 Service Pack 7.

  2. Install the patch from:
    ftp://anonymous:dev2dev%40bea.com@ftpna.bea.com/pub/releases/security/CR358544_700sp7.jar

  3. Place the jar for the patch in the CLASSPATH before the weblogic.jar file.

WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express version 6.1

  1. Upgrade to WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express 6.1 Service Pack 7.

  2. Install the patch from:
    ftp://anonymous:dev2dev%40bea.com@ftpna.bea.com/pub/releases/security/CR358542_610sp7.jar

  3. Place the jar for the patch in the CLASSPATH before the weblogic.jar file.

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:

WebLogic Server: http://commerce.bea.com/showallversions.jsp?family=WLS

WebLogic Platform: http://commerce.bea.com/showallversions.jsp?family=WLP

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

III. REFERENCES

BEA Systems greatly appreciates the contributions from the following professional organizations for their assistance in investigating this matter:
  • ACROS Security
  • DV Bern AG
  • Application Security Inc
  • GomoR

    • IV. 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

    V. 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.