Aspera OrchestratorApplication · Ibm

CVE-2023-38001

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-07-30
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
72/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges

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
IBM Aspera Orchestrator 4.0.1 is vulnerable to cross-site request forgery which could allow an attacker to execute malicious and unauthorized actions transmitted from a user that the website trusts. IBM X-Force ID: 260206.

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

IBM Aspera Orchestrator 4.0.1 contains a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability with CVSS 6.5. This allows attackers to trick authenticated users into unknowingly executing unauthorized state-changing actions, leveraging the trust relationship between the website and the user's browser.

MitigationImplement anti-CSRF tokens for all state-changing operations, configure SameSite attributes on session cookies, and validate Origin/Referer headers to prevent forged requests from malicious sites.

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
Aspera OrchestratorApplication
Affected:= 4.0.1

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
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/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 checks

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

  1. Confirm installed version
    Check the IBM Aspera Orchestrator version number in the product UI or via command line (such as 'ibm-aspera-orchestrator --version' or through the admin interface).
    Affected if The installed version is exactly 4.0.1
  2. Inspect state-changing endpoints for anti-CSRF tokens
    Use a browser developer tool or proxy to capture a request when performing a state-changing action (e.g., creating a user, modifying settings). Examine if the request includes a CSRF token parameter or header.
    Affected if State-changing requests lack anti-CSRF tokens or have predictable/empty token values
  3. Check session cookie SameSite attribute
    Using browser developer tools, inspect the session cookie(s) for the Aspera Orchestrator application. Look for the 'SameSite' attribute in the Set-Cookie header.
    Affected if Session cookies have SameSite attribute set to 'None' or missing entirely (not set to 'Strict' or 'Lax')
  4. Verify Origin/Referer header validation
    Capture a request to a state-changing endpoint and examine server-side code or response behavior when the Origin or Referer header is modified or removed.
    Affected if The application accepts requests with missing or spoofed Origin/Referer headers without rejecting them

You are affected if IBM Aspera Orchestrator version 4.0.1 is installed AND state-changing operations lack anti-CSRF token protection, proper SameSite cookie attributes, or Origin/Referer header validation.

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

Implement anti-CSRF tokens for all state-changing operations, configure SameSite attributes on session cookies, and validate Origin/Referer headers to prevent forged requests from malicious sites.

Fix this in Aspera Orchestrator Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
14.0 hours of engineering $2,490
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-38001 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-38001 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