CVE-2024-9970: Newtype Flowmaster BPM Plus Privilege Escalation

CVE-2024-9970 Overview

CVE-2024-9970 is a privilege escalation vulnerability affecting the NewType FlowMaster BPM Plus business process management system. Authenticated remote attackers holding regular user privileges can escalate to administrator by tampering with a specific session cookie. The flaw stems from the application trusting a client-controlled cookie value to determine the user's role, mapping to [CWE-565] Reliance on Cookies without Validation and Integrity Checking. Successful exploitation grants full administrative control over the workflow platform, exposing sensitive business process data, approvals, and configuration.

Critical Impact
Attackers with any valid FlowMaster BPM Plus account can gain administrator privileges over the network, compromising confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the entire BPM environment.

Affected Products

NewType FlowMaster BPM Plus (all versions prior to the vendor-supplied fix)

Discovery Timeline

2024-10-15 - CVE-2024-9970 published to NVD
2026-06-17 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2024-9970

Vulnerability Analysis

FlowMaster BPM Plus assigns access rights based on a cookie value transmitted by the client. The application does not cryptographically bind the cookie to a server-side session or validate its integrity. An authenticated user with normal privileges can intercept the response after login, modify the role-identifying cookie, and replay it to gain administrator authorization on subsequent requests. Because authorization decisions rely entirely on the mutable cookie value, the server accepts the elevated identity without additional verification. This corresponds to [CWE-565], where security-critical decisions depend on data controlled by the client.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing server-side validation of a privilege-bearing cookie. The application treats the cookie as authoritative rather than deriving the role from a signed token or a server-managed session store. No HMAC, digital signature, or session-to-role mapping check exists to detect tampering.

Attack Vector

Exploitation requires network access to the FlowMaster BPM Plus web interface and a valid low-privilege account. No user interaction is required. An attacker authenticates normally, captures the HTTP response containing the role cookie using a proxy such as Burp Suite, alters the value to reflect an administrator role, and issues privileged API calls. The attack is trivial to reproduce and does not require memory corruption primitives or credential theft.

No verified proof-of-concept has been published. Technical details are described in the TW-CERT Security Advisory and the TW-CERT Incident Report.

Detection Methods for CVE-2024-9970

Indicators of Compromise

HTTP requests to FlowMaster BPM Plus endpoints where the role-bearing cookie value differs from the value originally issued at login.
Administrative actions (user creation, permission changes, workflow modification) performed by accounts that were previously assigned only standard privileges.
Unexpected access to administrator-only URLs or API endpoints from IP addresses associated with regular users.

Detection Strategies

Correlate authentication events with subsequent authorization decisions to flag sessions where the effective role diverges from the role assigned at login.
Deploy web application firewall rules that inspect and log privilege-bearing cookies for anomalous or malformed values.
Review audit logs for privilege changes and administrative actions initiated by low-privilege user identifiers.

Monitoring Recommendations

Forward FlowMaster BPM Plus web server and application logs to a centralized SIEM for role-mismatch analytics.
Alert on any session where cookie values controlling authorization are modified mid-session.
Monitor for enumeration of administrative endpoints followed by successful HTTP 200 responses from non-administrator accounts.

How to Mitigate CVE-2024-9970

Immediate Actions Required

Apply the vendor patch referenced in the TW-CERT Security Advisory to all FlowMaster BPM Plus instances.
Restrict network exposure of the FlowMaster BPM Plus web interface to trusted internal networks or via VPN until patching is complete.
Audit existing accounts and administrator role assignments for signs of prior escalation.

Patch Information

NewType has released updated FlowMaster BPM Plus builds addressing the cookie-based authorization flaw. Administrators should contact NewType directly or consult the TW-CERT advisories linked above to obtain the appropriate fixed version for their deployment.

Workarounds

Place FlowMaster BPM Plus behind a reverse proxy or WAF that strips or validates role-bearing cookies against server-side session state.
Enforce short session timeouts and require re-authentication for administrative operations to limit the window for cookie replay.
Disable or tightly restrict low-privilege accounts that are not actively required until the patch is applied.

bash

# Example WAF rule concept: block requests where a privileged role cookie
# is presented without a corresponding server-issued session identifier.
# Adapt to your WAF syntax (ModSecurity example shown).
SecRule REQUEST_COOKIES:role "@rx admin" \
    "id:1009970,phase:1,deny,status:403,\
     msg:'CVE-2024-9970: suspicious admin role cookie',\
     chain"
    SecRule &REQUEST_COOKIES:JSESSIONID "@eq 0"