Insecure RememberMe Cookie Persistence in Apache Shiro

Executive Summary

This vulnerability occurs because the "Remember me" cookie age is not verified on the server side in affected Apache Shiro versions. As a result, an attacker who intercepts a valid "Remember me" cookie can reuse it indefinitely, even after the cookie's configured expiration time has passed.

It affects all Apache Shiro versions from 1.2.4 through 2.x, and 3.0.0-alpha-1, but only when the RememberMe functionality is enabled.

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Impact Analysis

The vulnerability allows an attacker to reuse a valid "Remember me" cookie indefinitely, which can lead to unauthorized access to user accounts or sessions.

This means that even after a user’s session should have expired, an attacker with the intercepted cookie can continue to impersonate the user, potentially compromising sensitive information or functionality.

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Mitigation Strategies

To mitigate this vulnerability, upgrade Apache Shiro to version 3.0.0 or later, which fixes the issue related to the "Remember me" cookie age not being verified on the server.

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Compliance Impact

The vulnerability allows an attacker to reuse a valid "remember me" cookie indefinitely by not verifying its age on the server side. This could lead to unauthorized access to user accounts beyond the intended session duration.

Such unauthorized access risks violating security and privacy requirements in common standards and regulations like GDPR and HIPAA, which mandate proper session management and protection of user data to prevent unauthorized access.

Therefore, this vulnerability potentially undermines compliance with these regulations by enabling prolonged unauthorized access through session hijacking.

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