Discovered by a Check Point researcher and reported to the organisation on 30 September, the implications of an attacker using the system to gain access to the system's data on unpatched flaws is almost impossible to quantify.
According to Check Point, when tested the vulnerability allowed its researcher to "manipulate" any of the database fields during the user creation process, breaking email verification security. The attacker could then create privileged accounts at will.
Set up by Mozilla in 1998, the system is used to report and manage response for numerous open source projects including Firefox, Apache, OpenSSH, LibreOffice, Eclipse, KDE, GNOME and the holy Linux kernel itself.
The flaw is now Identified as CVE-2014-1572 affecting all versions of Bugzilla since 2.23.3 released in 2006, so developers have some work on their hands. On the up side this is the first significant flaw ever reported in the platform since 2002.
The relevant software patches can be found here for versions 4.0.15, 4.2.11, 4.4.6, and 4.5.6., which the Bugzilla team appears to have come up with within hours of the issue being reported.
"Bugzilla administrators are urged to deploy the patch and upgrade their software immediately. It is unknown whether any attacks have occurred as a result of this vulnerability but we recommend that Bugzilla installation administrators screen their current user lists for suspicious activity," said a Check Point statement.
By John E. Dunn (Techworld)
