CVE-2018-16959
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedAn issue was discovered in Oracle WebCenter Interaction Portal 10.3.3. The portal component is delivered with an insecure default User Profile community configuration that allows anonymous users to retrieve the account names of all portal users via /portal/server.pt/user/user/ requests. When WCI is synchronised with Active Directory (AD), this vulnerability can expose the account names of all AD users. NOTE: this CVE is assigned by MITRE and isn't validated by Oracle because Oracle WebCenter Interaction Portal is out of support.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceOracle WebCenter Interaction Portal 10.3.3 ships with an insecure default User Profile community configuration that permits unauthenticated anonymous users to enumerate all portal user account names via HTTP requests to /portal/server.pt/user/user/. When WCI synchronizes with Active Directory, this exposes the account names of all AD users.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 10.3.3CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Verify Oracle WebCenter Interaction versionCheck the installed version of Oracle WebCenter Interaction in the system or administration console - look for version 10.3.3 specificallyAffected if Version is exactly 10.3.3
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Confirm User Profile community anonymous access settingIn the WCI administration console, navigate to the User Profile community settings and check whether anonymous/guest access is enabled for that communityAffected if Anonymous access is enabled for the User Profile community (this is the default insecure configuration)
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Test unauthenticated access to user enumeration endpointSend an HTTP GET request to /portal/server.pt/user/user/ without providing any authentication credentialsAffected if The endpoint returns user account names or user directory information without requiring login
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Check for Active Directory integrationIn the WCI administration console, verify whether the portal is configured to synchronize with Microsoft Active DirectoryAffected if WCI is synchronized with Active Directory - this increases severity as all AD account names become enumerable
A user is affected if they are running version 10.3.3 with the default configuration where anonymous access is permitted to the User Profile community, allowing unauthenticated enumeration of user accounts via the /portal/server.pt/user/user/ endpoint.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataRestrict or disable anonymous access to the User Profile community in the WCI administration console, and apply authentication requirements to the /portal/server.pt/user/user/ endpoint or restrict it to authorized users only.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2018-16959 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2018-16959 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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