[CVE-2016-6805] Arbitrary File Read due to eXternal Xml Entity attack in Apache Ignite

[CVE-2016-6805] Arbitrary File Read due to eXternal Xml Entity attack in Apache Ignite

Severity: Important

Vendor: The Apache Software Foundation

Versions Affected: Apache Ignite 1.0.0-RC3 to 1.8

Description:
Apache Ignite uses an update notifier component to update the users about new project releases that include additional functionality, bug fixes and performance improvements. To do that the component communicates to an external PHP server (http://ignite.run) where it needs to send some system properties like Apache Ignite or Java version. This feature is enabled by default and used to send sensitive data over HTTP by mistake, such as installation folders or environment variables stored in Java system properties. The second issue is because TLS is not used between the application and the PHP server, a Man-in-the-middle attack is possible and a malicious actor could alter the response coming from the ignite.run server. This response is parsed by the Apache ignite component as XML, and a XXE attack can be triggered.

Both issues mentioned above were fixed as a part of Apache Ignite 1.9 release. The relevant commits with the changes:

Mitigation:
Users must upgrade to Apache Ignite 1.9 or later versions or disable the update notifier.

Credit:
Pierre Ernst, Salesforce