Title: CVE-2021-2207 - RMAN Controlfile Operation Not Audited
Product:                   Database
Manufacturer:              Oracle
Affected Version(s):       12.1.0.2, 12.2.0.1, 18c, 19c
Tested Version(s):         19c
Risk Level:                low
Score:                     2.3
Solution Status:           Fixed
CVE Reference:             CVE-2021-2207
Author of Advisory:        Emad Al-Mousa

Overview:

Audit failure is a security weakness in software product especially if a security audit is in-place to detect a certain operation. Oracle RMAN is
a database Recovery Manager utility for backup and restore operations, so any security weakness/vulnerability can be exploited by insider threat or
external attacker to view confidential data in unauthorized manner.

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Vulnerability Details:

oracle database controlfile restore is not logged in unified auditing logs


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Proof of Concept (PoC):


In this simulation, unified auditing logs the backup of controlfile successfully while restore operation was not as shown below:

rman target /

RMAN> backup current controlfile;

RMAN> restore controlfile to '/tmp/emad_ctl.ctl';

Querying Unified Audit logs:

SQL> select audit_type,client_program_name,event_timestamp,rman_operation,rman_object_type,rman_device_type from unified_audit_trail where audit_type like 'RMAN%'' order by event_timestamp desc;


control file backup was recorded under RMAN_OBJECT_TYPE column while restore operation was logged, but it was not clear for which database object….in our case its the controlfile !


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References:
https://www.oracle.com/security-alerts/cpuapr2021.html
https://databasesecurityninja.wordpress.com/2023/09/01/cve-2021-2207-rman-controlfile-operation-not-audited/