Apache Warns of Zero-Day Exploit in the Wild — Patch You Web Servers Now!

Oct 5, 2021

Apache has issued patches to address two security
vulnerabilities, including a path traversal and file disclosure
flaw in its HTTP server that it said is being actively exploited in
the wild.

“A flaw was found in a change made to path normalization in
Apache HTTP Server 2.4.49. An attacker could use a path traversal
attack to map URLs to files outside the expected document root,”
the open-source project maintainers noted ^[1]
in an advisory published Tuesday.

“If files outside of the document root are not protected by
‘require all denied’ these requests can succeed. Additionally this
flaw could leak the source of interpreted files like CGI
scripts.”

The flaw, tracked as CVE-2021-41773 ^[2], affects only Apache
HTTP server version 2.4.49. Ash Daulton and cPanel Security Team
have been credited with discovering and reporting the issue on
September 29, 2021.

Source: PT SWARM

Also resolved by Apache is a null pointer dereference
vulnerability observed during processing HTTP/2 requests (CVE-2021-41524 ^[3]), thus allowing an
adversary to perform a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on the
server. The non-profit corporation said the weakness was introduced
in version 2.4.49.

Apache users are highly recommended ^[4]
to patch as soon as possible to contain the path traversal
vulnerability and mitigate any risk associated with active
exploitation of the flaw.

References

^{^}
noted
(httpd.apache.org)
^{^}
CVE-2021-41773
(nvd.nist.gov)
^{^}
CVE-2021-41524
(nvd.nist.gov)
^{^}
highly
recommended (twitter.com)

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OWASP TOP !0

Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion. Cross-Site Scripting XSS. XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.

Apache Warns of Zero-Day Exploit in the Wild — Patch You Web Servers Now!

References

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