CVE-2020-26527
📋 TL;DR
This CVE describes a Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) misconfiguration vulnerability in Damstra Smart Asset 2020.7 that allows arbitrary origins to access API endpoints by accepting any 'Origin' header and responding with a wildcard 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *' header. This affects organizations using Damstra Smart Asset 2020.7 for asset management.
💻 Affected Systems
- Damstra Smart Asset
📦 What is this software?
Smart Asset by Damstratechnology
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Attackers can perform cross-origin attacks to steal sensitive data, execute unauthorized actions, or perform account takeover by making authenticated requests from malicious websites.
Likely Case
Data exfiltration of sensitive asset information, user credentials, or session tokens through cross-origin requests from compromised or malicious websites.
If Mitigated
Limited impact if proper network segmentation, web application firewalls, and same-origin policies are enforced.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires the victim to visit a malicious website while authenticated to Smart Asset. The GitHub repository contains proof-of-concept code.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 2020.7.1 or later
Vendor Advisory: https://support.damstratechnology.com/hc/en-us/categories/900000115446-SmartAsset-Damstra-Asset-Management-Platform
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Contact Damstra support for patch details. 2. Apply the patch to upgrade to version 2020.7.1 or later. 3. Restart the Smart Asset service. 4. Verify the fix by testing CORS headers.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Web Server CORS Configuration
allConfigure the web server (IIS, Apache, Nginx) to restrict CORS headers to trusted origins only.
For Nginx: add_header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' 'trusted-domain.com';
For Apache: Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin 'trusted-domain.com'
WAF Rule
allImplement a web application firewall rule to block requests with suspicious Origin headers or restrict CORS responses.
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement strict network segmentation to isolate the Smart Asset server from untrusted networks.
- Deploy a reverse proxy with proper CORS validation to filter malicious requests.
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Send an HTTP request to the API/api/Version endpoint with an arbitrary Origin header (e.g., Origin: evil.com) and check if the response includes Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *.Check Version:
Check the Smart Asset admin interface or configuration files for the version number.Verify Fix Applied:
Repeat the vulnerable check; the response should not include Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * or should restrict it to trusted origins.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual Origin headers in web server logs (e.g., from non-trusted domains)
- Multiple failed authentication attempts from cross-origin requests
Network Indicators:
- HTTP requests with suspicious Origin headers to API endpoints
- Unexpected cross-origin API responses
SIEM Query:
source="web_server_logs" AND (uri="/API/api/Version" OR uri CONTAINS "/API/") AND (origin_header!="trusted-domain.com" OR origin_header="*")🔗 References
- https://github.com/lukaszstu/SmartAsset-CORS-CVE-2020-26527/blob/main/README.md
- https://smartasset.com/
- https://support.damstratechnology.com/hc/en-us/categories/900000115446-SmartAsset-Damstra-Asset-Management-Platform
- https://github.com/lukaszstu/SmartAsset-CORS-CVE-2020-26527/blob/main/README.md
- https://smartasset.com/
- https://support.damstratechnology.com/hc/en-us/categories/900000115446-SmartAsset-Damstra-Asset-Management-Platform
