XXE Vulnerability in SAP JAVA NetWeaver System Connections
Impact On Business
A high-privileged SAP JAVA NetWeaver user is able to abuse an XXE vulnerability with the goal of reading files from the OS (compromising confidentiality) and/or making system processes crash (compromising availability).
Affected Components Description
The ESP framework is a framework used inside SAP JAVA NetWeaver. Due to being part of this foundational layer, every SAP product based on JAVA NetWeaver will be vulnerable to this attack. This includes: SAP SolMan, SAP LaMa, SAP CRM, just to mention a few.
Affected components:
- ESP framework (SAP JAVA)
(Check SAP Note #3053066 for detailed information on affected releases)
Vulnerability Details
The Communication Profiles functionality provided within SAP JAVA NetWeaver, is vulnerable to XXE attacks. Due to the lack of validation of external entities, an authenticated attacker is able to submit specially crafted XML and compromise the integrity (by reading files of the OS) and the availability (by causing process to crash).
Solution
SAP has released SAP Note #3053066 which provides patched versions of the affected components.
The patches can be downloaded from https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/3053066.
Onapsis strongly recommends SAP customers to download the related security fixes and apply them to the affected components in order to reduce business risks.
Report Timeline
- 04/22/2021 – Onapsis sends details to SAP
- 04/23/2021 – SAP provides internal tracking ID 2170134834
- 04/26/2021 – SAP provides the following email:
- 05/10/2021 – SAP provides update: Vulnerability being fixed
- 06/08/2021 – SAP releases patch #3053066
- 11/21/2021 – Advisory published
REFERENCES
- Onapsis Blog Post:
https://onapsis.com/de/node/3651 - CVE Mitre:
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2021-27635 - Vendor Patch:
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/3053066
Advisory Information
- Public Release Date: 11/21/2021
- Security Advisory ID: ONAPSIS-2021-0016
- Vulnerability Submission ID: 881
- Researcher(s): Pablo Artuso
Vulnerability Information
- Vendor: SAP
- Vulnerability Class: |LS|CWE-611|RS| Improper Restriction of XML External Entity Reference
- CVSS v3 score: 8.7 AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:H
- Severity: High
- CVE: CVE-2021-27635
- Vendor patch Information: SAP Security Note 3053066
ABOUT OUR RESEARCH LABS
Onapsis Research Labs provides the industry analysis of key security issues that impact mission-critical systems and applications.
Delivering frequent and timely security and compliance advisories with associated risk levels, Onapsis Research Labs combine in-depth knowledge
and experience to deliver technical and business-context with sound security judgment to the broader information security community.
Find all reported vulnerabilities at https://github.com/Onapsis/vulnerability_advisories
This advisory is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 BY-ND International License
