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Businessobjects Business IntelligenceApplication · Sap

CVE-2018-2473

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.0 Published 2018-11-13
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
71/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable Zero-click

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 · unedited
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Server, versions 4.1 and 4.2, when using Web Intelligence Richclient 3 tiers mode gateway allows an attacker to prevent legitimate users from accessing a service, either by crashing or flooding the service.

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 · moderate confidence

SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform versions 4.1 and 4.2 contain a Denial of Service vulnerability in the Web Intelligence Richclient 3 tiers mode gateway. An attacker can exploit this to crash or flood the service, preventing legitimate users from accessing the Business Intelligence platform.

MitigationApply the relevant SAP security patch for CVE-2018-2473 to upgrade to a patched version of BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 or 4.2, and implement network-level rate limiting or firewall rules to mitigate flooding attempts.

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
Businessobjects Business IntelligenceApplication
Affected:= 4.1= 4.2

CVSS 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
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify installed BusinessObjects BI Platform version
    Open the SAP BusinessObjects Central Management Console (CMC) and navigate to the 'About' section, or use the 'wdeploy' command with the -version flag. Alternatively, check the installation directory for version information in the installation logs or registry.
    Affected if The installed version is exactly 4.1 or exactly 4.2 (no patches applied)
  2. Confirm Web Intelligence Richclient is accessible
    Access the SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform launch pad and check if Web Intelligence (WebI) Richclient is available as a viewing option. Log in as a user and attempt to open a Web Intelligence document.
    Affected if Web Intelligence Richclient interface is accessible to users
  3. Verify 3 tiers mode is configured for Web Intelligence
    In the CMC, navigate to the Web Intelligence service configuration. Check the 'Server' settings and look for the '3-Tier' or 'Richclient 3 tiers mode' gateway configuration. This can also be checked via the BOE WDeploy tool or by inspecting the web.xml configuration files in the webapps directory.
    Affected if The Web Intelligence Richclient 3 tiers mode gateway is enabled in the configuration
  4. Review server logs for crash or flood indicators
    Examine the Web Intelligence server logs and the Tomcat/Apache error logs in the BusinessObjects logging directory for patterns of crashes, timeouts, or excessive request volumes related to Web Intelligence processing.
    Affected if Logs show repeated crashes, hanging processes, or unusually high request volumes targeting Web Intelligence gateway

Your environment is affected if you are running BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 or 4.2 with Web Intelligence Richclient 3 tiers mode enabled, as this specific configuration exposes the gateway to the DoS vulnerability.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Apply the relevant SAP security patch for CVE-2018-2473 to upgrade to a patched version of BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 or 4.2, and implement network-level rate limiting or firewall rules to mitigate flooding attempts.

Fix this in Businessobjects Business Intelligence Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
22.0 hours of engineering $3,860
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2018-2473 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data