Debian Security Advisory

DLA-1400-1 tomcat7 -- LTS security update

Date Reported:
27 Jun 2018
Affected Packages:
tomcat7
Vulnerable:
Yes
Security database references:
In the Debian bugtracking system: Bug 802312, Bug 898935.
In Mitre's CVE dictionary: CVE-2017-7674, CVE-2017-12616, CVE-2018-1304, CVE-2018-1305, CVE-2018-8014.
More information:

Several security vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Tomcat servlet and JSP engine.

  • CVE-2017-7674

    The CORS Filter in Apache Tomcat did not add an HTTP Vary header indicating that the response varies depending on Origin. This permitted client and server side cache poisoning in some circumstances.

  • CVE-2017-12616

    When using a VirtualDirContext with Apache Tomcat it was possible to bypass security constraints and/or view the source code of JSPs for resources served by the VirtualDirContext using a specially crafted request.

  • CVE-2018-1304

    The URL pattern of "" (the empty string) which exactly maps to the context root was not correctly handled in Apache Tomcat when used as part of a security constraint definition. This caused the constraint to be ignored. It was, therefore, possible for unauthorized users to gain access to web application resources that should have been protected. Only security constraints with a URL pattern of the empty string were affected.

  • CVE-2018-1305

    Security constraints defined by annotations of Servlets in Apache Tomcat were only applied once a Servlet had been loaded. Because security constraints defined in this way apply to the URL pattern and any URLs below that point, it was possible - depending on the order Servlets were loaded - for some security constraints not to be applied. This could have exposed resources to users who were not authorized to access them.

  • CVE-2018-8014

    The defaults settings for the CORS filter provided in Apache Tomcat are insecure and enable supportsCredentials for all origins. It is expected that users of the CORS filter will have configured it appropriately for their environment rather than using it in the default configuration. Therefore, it is expected that most users will not be impacted by this issue.

For Debian 8 Jessie, these problems have been fixed in version 7.0.56-3+really7.0.88-1.

We recommend that you upgrade your tomcat7 packages.

Further information about Debian LTS security advisories, how to apply these updates to your system and frequently asked questions can be found at: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS