Title: CVE-2014-4980 Parameter Tampering in Nessus Web UI – Remote Information Disclosure

Product: Nessus

Vendor: Tenable Network Security

Version: Nessus 5.2.3-5.2.7 – Web UI 2.3.4 (potentially lower)

Vendor Notified Date: June 24, 2014

Vendor Resolved Date: June 25, 2014

Release Date: July 18, 2014

Risk: Medium

Authentication: Not Required

Remote: Yes

Description:

A parameter tampering vulnerability exists in Nessus 5.2.7 and potentially below that allows remote attackers to retrieve potentially sensitive information from the server via the Nessus Web UI. By not checking each parameter, an attacker can retrieve information meant for authenticated users.

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability resulted in retrieving the following data without authentication, which can assist an attacker to launching further attacks:
Plugin Set, Server uuid, Web Server Version, Nessus UI Version, Nessus Type, Notifications, MSP, Capabilities, Multi Scanner, Multi User, Tags, Reset Password, Report Diff, Report Email Config, Report Email, PCI Upload, Plugin Rules, Plugin Set, Idle Timeout, Scanner Boot time, Server Version, Feed, and Status.

Exploit steps for proof-of-concept:

  1. Navigate to http://vulnerablehost.com/server/properties?token= and observe the returned content.
  2. Navigate to http://vulnerablehost.com/server/properties?token=1 and observe the newly returned content meant for authenticated sessions.

Vendor Response:

Fix was added to Web UI 2.3.5 on June 25, 2014.

Reference:

CVE-2014-4980
http://www.tenable.com/security/tns-2014-05

Credit:

Robert Gilbert

HALOCK Security Labs