Description

Applications that do not change the value of the MvcViewFactoryCreator useSpringBinding property which is disabled by default (i.e. set to “false”) can be vulnerable to malicious EL expressions in view states that process form submissions but do not have a sub-element to declare explicit data binding property mappings.

Affected Spring Products and Versions

Spring Web Flow 2.4.0 to 2.4.4
Older unsupported versions are also affected

Mitigation

Users of affected versions should apply the following mitigation:

2.4.x users should upgrade to 2.4.5
Note that generally it is a good practice and recommended to always use explicit data binding declarations in view states in order to prevent form submissions from setting fields on the target object that should not be set.
Spring Web Flow with JSF users are not impacted by this report.

Credit

The issue was identified by Stefano Ciccone of Gotham Digital Science

History

2017-05-31: Initial vulnerability report published

Reporting a vulnerability

The VMware Security Response team provides a single point of contact for the reporting of security vulnerabilities in VMware Tanzu products and coordinates the process of investigating any reported vulnerabilities.

To report a security vulnerability in a VMware service or product please refer to the VMware Security Response Policy.