Security Bulletin: LDAP vulnerability affects IBM SAN Volume Controller, IBM Storwize, IBM Spectrum Virtualize and IBM FlashSystem products

Summary

A vulnerability in LDAP authentication affects IBM SAN Volume Controller, IBM Storwize V7000, IBM Storwize V5000 and V5100, IBM Storwize V5000E, IBM Spectrum Virtualize Software, IBM Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud, IBM FlashSystem V9000, IBM FlashSystem 9100 Family, IBM FlashSystem 9200, IBM FlashSystem 7200 and IBM FlashSystem 5000 products. The applicable vulnerability is CVE-2020-4686.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID:CVE-2020-4686
**DESCRIPTION:**IBM Spectrum Virtualize could allow a remote user authenticated via LDAP to escalate their privileges and perform actions they should not have access to.
CVSS Base score: 6.8
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/186678 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N)

Affected Products and Versions

Remediation/Fixes

IBM recommends that you fix this vulnerability by upgrading affected versions of IBM SAN Volume Controller, IBM Storwize V7000, IBM Storwize V5000 and V5100, IBM Storwize V5000E, IBM Spectrum Virtualize Software, IBM Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud, IBM FlashSystem V9000, IBM FlashSystem 9100 Family, IBM FlashSystem 9200, IBM FlashSystem 7200 and IBM FlashSystem 5000 to the following code levels or higher:

8.3.1.2

Latest IBM SAN Volume Controller Code
Latest IBM Storwize V7000 Code
Latest IBM Storwize V5000 and V5100 Code
Latest IBM Storwize V5000E Code
Latest IBM FlashSystem V9000 Code
Latest IBM FlashSystem 9100 Family Code
Latest IBM FlashSystem 9200 Code
Latest IBM FlashSystem 7200 Code
Latest IBM FlashSystem 5000 Code
Latest IBM Spectrum Virtualize Software
Latest IBM Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud

Workarounds and Mitigations

Disabling the LDAP authentication cache will prevent this vulnerability from being exploited. The LDAP authentication cache can be disabled by setting the authentication cache minutes to 0 by running the following command on the CLI:

chldap -authcacheminutes 0

This setting can only be changed via the CLI by a user with the SecurityAdmin role.

Disabling the authentication cache will cause all logins and any CLI commands that modify the system configuration to authenticate individually with the LDAP server, causing an increase in load on the LDAP servers which may lead to command line processing delays. CLI commands that view the state of the system are not affected.

For this reason we recommend reenabling the authentication cache after upgrading to a code level containing a fix for this vulnerability, which can be done by running the following command on the CLI:

chldap -authcacheminutes 10

This will set the authentication cache time back to the default value of 10 minutes.