Security Advisories and Notifications

Security Advisory: (BEA04-43.01)

From: Oracle Corporation

Minor Subject: Workaround available to prevent MBean exposure

Product(s) Affected: WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express

Threat level: Low

This vulnerability requires RMI access to exploit.

Severity: Low

This vulnerability results in the leaking of non-confidential configuration data to anonymous users.

This security advisory (BEA04-43.01) contains additional explanations of the Suggested Actions 1 and 2 described in Section II. These explanations do not change the remedies suggested in Advisory BEA03-03-43.00.

Action 2 applies to only WebLogic Server version 8.1, not to WebLogic Server version 7.0 as previously reported.

Please disregard SECURITY ADVISORY BEA03-43.00, as this advisory, BEA04-43.01, supersedes it.

Recently a problem was identified that could potentially cause a security vulnerability in certain versions of WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express. Patches are available to correct this problem (see Section II). BEA System treats such possibilities with the highest degree of urgency and does everything possible to ensure the security of all customer assets. As a result, Oracle strongly suggest the following actions:

  1. I. Read the following advisory.
  2. II. Apply the suggested action.
  3. III. If you know of any additional users interested in future security advisories, please forward them the registration instructions below.

I. Advisory

By default, the MBean Home for a site can be obtained through JNDI by an anonymous user. Many configuration MBeans can be obtained and examined through MBean Home. Although this situation does not by default introduce any known security vulnerabilities, Oracle considers it a best security practice to carefully protect as much configuration data as possible. This vulnerability affects sites running WebLogic Server unless they have previously disabled anonymous admin lookup. To exploit this vulnerability, a user must have RMI access to the site.

The following versions of WebLogic Server and Express are affected by this vulnerability:

WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express versions 6.1, 7.0, and 8.1 on all platforms

II. SUGGESTED ACTION

Oracle strongly recommends the following course of actions:

1. Using the security policies available through the WebLogic Server Administration Console to protect the portions of the JNDI tree that contain sensitive data.

In particular, the weblogic.management.adminhome, weblogic.management.home.localhome, and weblogic.management.home entries should be protected.

Security policies are applied by accessing the JNDI tree for and setting more restrictive security policies to the vulnerable portions of the JNDI tree. The User is a member of group Users security policy is sufficient protection.

2. In WebLogic Server version 8.1, anonymous access can be disabled by setting the Anonymous Admin Lookup Enabled attribute to false. This attribute sets an implicit security policy (User is a member of the group Users).

3. Denying RMI access to clients. This vulnerability requires RMI to access JNDI. If RMI access is denied (for example, via a firewall), this vulnerability cannot be exploited.

SECURITY COMMUNICATIONS

Oracle strongly suggests that customers apply the remedies recommended in all our security advisories. Oracle also urges customers to apply every Service/Maintenance Pack as they are released. Service/Maintenance Packs include a roll-up of all bug fixes for each version of the product, as well as each of the prior Service/Maintenance Packs. Service/Maintenance Packs.

As a policy, if there are any security-related issues with any Oracle product, Oracle will distribute an advisory and instructions with the appropriate course of action. Because the security of your site, data, and code is our highest priority, we are committed to communicating all security-related issues clearly and openly.

Additional users who wish to register for product advisory distribution should follow the registration directions at: http://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/.

Security issues can be reported to Oracle by following the directions at: http://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/.

Thank you,

Oracle Corporation