Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
Cloud Foundry UAA is an authentication service. In vulnerable versions, a logged-in user could manipulate a consent page to receive tokens with scopes they should not have. That can turn ordinary access into administrative or broader application access, creating high business risk where UAA protects important Cloud Foundry services.
Executive priority
Prioritize remediation urgently for any production Cloud Foundry environment. This is a critical authentication-layer flaw that can expand a compromised or ordinary account into higher privileges.
Technical view
CVE-2018-15761 is a validation error in Cloud Foundry UAA Release before v64.0 and UAA before 4.23.0. A remote authenticated user may modify the URL and content of a consent page and obtain a token with arbitrary scopes, causing privilege escalation. CVSS v3.0 is 9.9 with low complexity and changed scope.
Likely exposure
Organizations using Cloud Foundry UAA or UAA Release versions below the fixed versions are potentially exposed, especially where authenticated users can reach consent flows. The source bundle does not identify specific distributions beyond Cloud Foundry UAA and UAA Release.
Exploitation context
The source bundle supports remote authenticated exploitation and privilege escalation. It does not provide evidence of active exploitation, public exploit availability, or CISA KEV listing. Treat this as serious because valid low-privilege credentials may be enough.
Researcher notes
Evidence is limited to CVE metadata and the Cloud Foundry advisory reference in the bundle. The affected list says all versions, while the description gives fixed thresholds. No exploit telemetry, patch details beyond version thresholds, or workaround specifics are included.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade UAA to 4.23.0 or later.
- Upgrade UAA Release to v64.0 or later.
- Review Cloud Foundry vendor guidance for environment-specific remediation.
- Audit issued tokens and scopes after remediation.
- Prioritize systems where UAA grants administrative or production access.
Validation and detection
- Inventory all Cloud Foundry UAA and UAA Release deployments.
- Compare deployed versions against UAA 4.23.0 and UAA Release v64.0.
- Identify externally reachable UAA consent flows.
- Review logs for unusual consent activity or unexpected token scopes.
- Confirm upgraded environments issue only authorized scopes.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
Credential and access behavior lookup
The CVE wording references authentication or credential exposure, so valid-account and credential-access review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupPrivilege behavior lookup
The CVE wording references privilege impact, so privilege escalation and authorization behavior review may help. This is a Glexia inferred lookup path, not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, or CVE Program mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2018-15761 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Critical
- CVSS
- 9.9 (3.0)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H3.16Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.0 score
9.9CriticalVector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://www.cloudfoundry.org/blog/cve-2018-15761/CVE reference · x_refsource_CONFIRM
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.