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ThreatMetrix patches SSL certification flaw in its iOS product

January 11, 2017

By Bradley Barth

The ThreatMetrix software development kit for iOS was patched on Tuesday following the discovery of an SSL certification vulnerability that could allow an attacker to execute a man-in-the-middle attack.

According to an advisory from the Software Engineering Institute's CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) at Carnegie Mellon University, ThreatMetrix fixed the issue, officially designated CVE-2017-3182, with version 3.2 of the SDK. In earlier versions, the SDK failed to validate validate SSL certificates provided by HTTPS connections. Consequently, attackers "on the same network or upstream from a vulnerable ioS device may be able to view of modify ThreatMetrix network traffic that should have been protected by HTTPS," the advisory warns.

ThreatMetrix is a security library for mobile applications that is designed to provide users with fraud prevention and device identity capabilities. CERT/CC researcher Will Dormann is credited with discovering the flaw.

UPDATE 1/13: ThreatMetrix has contacted SC Media and provided the following statement: "This was a bug from a prior SDK version from a year ago, specifically tied to the Discover mobile app. The next SDK version fixed the bug.
We believe Discover has upgraded SDK version, so there isn't currently a problem." However, this information does not seem to correspond at all with the details supplied by the CERT/CC.

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Bradley Barth

As director of multimedia content strategy at CyberRisk Alliance, Bradley Barth develops content for online conferences, webcasts, podcasts video/multimedia projects — often serving as moderator or host. For nearly six years, he wrote and reported for SC Media as deputy editor and, before that, senior reporter. He was previously a program executive with the tech-focused PR firm Voxus. Past journalistic experience includes stints as business editor at Executive Technology, a staff writer at New York Sportscene and a freelance journalist covering travel and entertainment. In his spare time, Bradley also writes screenplays.