Horizon Alert
Summary of the vulnerability and why it matters
A security vulnerability has been identified in the Goobi viewer, a web application used for displaying digitized materials. This issue could allow an attacker to execute code remotely on systems running vulnerable versions of the software. The main concern is to confirm if our organization uses this technology and assess the potential exposure.
- Goobi viewer can be tricked into writing files anywhere.
- Remote code execution poses a significant system compromise risk.
- Confirm usage and assess potential impact.
Attack Path
How an attacker could exploit the issue
An attacker could leverage an unauthenticated network connection to trick the Goobi viewer into downloading a specially crafted file. This file's name, provided by an attacker-controlled server, would contain commands that trick the viewer into writing files to arbitrary locations on the server. If these locations are within the viewer's own deployed directory, this could lead to the attacker gaining control of the server.
- Attacker controls a malicious server.
- Viewer downloads a file with a malicious name.
- Leads to remote code execution.
Live Threat
Current exploitation, exposure, and threat context
The Goobi viewer could allow an attacker to write arbitrary files to the server when it fetches content from a malicious HTTP server. This could lead to remote code execution on the system running the Tomcat process.
- Deployed web application files.
- Fetching from a malicious HTTP server.
- Remote code execution as the Tomcat user.
Operational Fix
Recommended remediation, mitigation, and detection steps
Ownership of this vulnerability likely falls to the teams managing the Goobi viewer application, potentially platform or infrastructure teams, with support from security and vendor management if the viewer is externally sourced. The immediate first step is to identify all instances of the Goobi viewer, confirm their exposure and criticality, and then engage the accountable owners to plan remediation.
- Identify affected Goobi viewer instances.
- Verify exposure and business criticality.
- Plan and execute remediation based on risk.
