Two bugs, now patched except in more mature variations, could be chained to allow attackers to hijack Zimbra server by just sending a destructive email.
Zimbra webmail server has two flaws that could allow an attacker paw by the inbox and outbox of all the workers in all the enterprises that use the immensely preferred collaboration resource, researchers say.
In a Tuesday writeup, SonarSource identified as it a “drastic” scenario, offered Zimbra’s recognition and the highly sensitive mother nature of the scads of messages that it handles. In accordance to Zimbra’s web page, its email and collaboration resources are utilized by in excess of 200,000 businesses, above a thousand federal government and economical institutions, and hundreds of thousands and thousands of buyers to exchange emails each working day.
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“When attackers get access to an employee’s email account, it typically has drastic security implications,” according to the report. “Besides the private data and documents that are exchanged, an email account is typically joined to other delicate accounts that make it possible for a password reset. Assume about it, what could an attacker do with your inbox?”
Effectively, they’d freely romp by accounts, for one. SonarSource researchers found two vulnerabilities in the open up-source Zimbra code that can be chained together to give attackers unrestricted obtain to Zimbra mail servers and to all sent and acquired email messages of all personnel.
Malicious Email Could Carry Crafted JavaScript Payload
Found out by Simon Scannell, a vulnerability researcher at SonarSource, the 1st flaw could be triggered just by opening a destructive email made up of a JavaScript payload. If a victim have been to open up these kinds of a riggedd email, they’d set off a cross-site scripting (XSS) bug (CVE-2021-35208) in their browser. When executed, that payload would present an attacker with access to the victim’s e-mail of the victim, as properly as their webmail session, SonarSource explained.
Additionally, it would be floor zero for other attacks, they explained: “With this, other options of Zimbra could be accessed and even more attacks could be released.”
The second flaw is a bypass of an enable-checklist that prospects to a effective server-aspect ask for forgery (SSRF) vulnerability (CVE-2021-35209) that can be exploited by an authenticated account belonging to a member of a targeted corporation who has any authorization function in anyway.
The two bugs, if combined, would give a remote attacker the energy to extract cherished goodies, like Google Cloud API Tokens or AWS IAM credentials from instances inside the cloud infrastructure.
The $80 Million Misconfiguration
That may well ring a bell: The researchers pointed to a 2019 breach of Funds One particular that included a comparable SSRF bug. Thanks to a cloud misconfiguration, the attacker – notably, a former AWS engineer – acquired away with the personalized details of around 100 million people. The FBI acquired him, but that was one highly-priced SSRF glitch: Funds A single had to fork in excess of $80 million to settle federal lender regulators’ promises that it lacked proper cybersecurity protocols.
SonarSource put it mildly: “SSRF vulnerabilities have turn out to be an increasingly unsafe bug course, in particular for cloud-indigenous applications,” according to the writeup. The security company stated that it does not know no matter if Zimbra Cloud, a SaaS resolution working with AWS, was affected by the vulnerability.
Scannell informed PortSwigger that the SSRF flaw allows an attacker send HTTP requests to arbitrary hosts or ports. “Combined with protocol smuggling, this could guide to RCE,” he was quoted as declaring. “It could also allow an attacker to steal very delicate metadata, this sort of as obtain tokens to the account that is related with the occasion that would have been exploited.”
Particularly, as outlined formerly, an attacker could get at accessibility tokens including Google Cloud API tokens or AWS IAM credentials from cloud scenarios.
The Zimbra workforce has preset the two issues, with Patch 18 for the 8.8.15 sequence and Patch 16 for the 9. series. SonarSource states that prior versions of the two branches are, even so, still susceptible. Threatpost arrived at out to Zimbra to locate out what the plan is for patching more mature versions and will update the article if we find out.
The issues had been claimed to Zimbra on May well 20 and 22, with patches introduced on June 28 for the 8.8.15 and 9. series.
Scannell told PortSwigger that the vulnerabilities, both rated as medium severity, could have experienced serious outcomes.”Both vulnerabilities work on default configuration and are impacting the Zimbra main,” he informed the outlet: a great deal of potential effects, presented all those 200,000 organizations to which Zimbra lays assert.
Earlier Pouncing on Zimbra
It is a safe and sound guess that attackers will check out to exploit the vulnerabilities, offered the number of bullseyes that have been painted onto Zimbra’s back.
In April, a Zimbra bug – CVE-2019-9670, in Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite (XXE) – was one particular of five flaws beneath nation-condition attack that prompted a Nationwide Security Agency (NSA) warning about an APT29 campaign that was bent on thieving qualifications and a lot more.
Zimbra should be a most loved target of the Russia-linked APT29 threat group: In advance of the April campaign, in July 2020, the cybergang set its sights on pharma exploration in Western nations in a probably endeavor to steal investigation for a COVID-19 vaccine. The get integrated utilizing exploits for regarded vulnerabilities, which include one particular in Zimbra (CVE-2019-9670).
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Some elements of this write-up are sourced from:
threatpost.com