CVE-2018-18977
Description
An issue was discovered in the Ascensia Contour NEXT ONE application for Android before 2019-01-15. An attacker may reverse engineer the codebase to extract sensitive data that contributes to the disclosure of medical information of patients utilizing the Ascensia platform. This occurs because of weak obfuscation.
AI Insight
LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.
Weak obfuscation in the Ascensia Contour NEXT ONE Android app before 2019-01-15 allows an attacker to reverse engineer the code and extract sensitive data, leading to disclosure of medical information.
Vulnerability
The vulnerability resides in the Ascensia Contour NEXT ONE Android application prior to 2019-01-15. The app uses weak obfuscation, making it feasible for an attacker to reverse engineer the codebase. This weakness enables extraction of sensitive data, including cryptographic keys and authentication tokens, which are used to secure communications with the backend cloud infrastructure [1].
Exploitation
An attacker needs access to the Android application binary (APK) and standard reverse-engineering tools (e.g., decompilers). No special network position or prior authentication is required. By decompiling the app, the attacker can extract hardcoded secrets that bypass certificate pinning and obtain valid credentials to interact with the vendor's cloud API [1]. Using these credentials, the attacker can perform authenticated requests against any user account on the platform.
Impact
Successful exploitation allows the attacker to read and potentially modify any user's stored medical data, including glucometer readings and personal information. This compromises the confidentiality and integrity of patient data managed through the Ascensia platform. If data tampering goes undetected, medical staff relying on the readings could make incorrect diagnoses or treatment decisions [1].
Mitigation
The fixed version was released prior to 2019-01-15. Users should update to the latest version of the Ascensia Contour NEXT ONE application from official app stores. No workaround is available for the unpatched version. The vendor addressed the weak obfuscation in this update [1].
AI Insight generated on May 26, 2026. Synthesized from this CVE's description and the cited reference URLs; citations are validated against the source bundle.
Affected products
2- Ascensia/Contour NEXT ONE applicationdescription
- Range: < 2019-01-15
Patches
0No patches discovered yet.
Vulnerability mechanics
Root cause
"Weak obfuscation of the Android application binary allows trivial reverse engineering to extract statically coded cryptographic keys and decryption logic."
Attack vector
An attacker with access to the Android application package (APK) can install it on a rooted device and extract the binary. Using standard decompilation tools, the attacker obtains obfuscated Java source code. Because the obfuscation is weak, the attacker can trivially reverse the obfuscation scheme to recover the hardcoded AES-CBC encryption key and initialization vector, as well as the decryption methods [ref_id=1]. This extracted cryptographic material can then be used to decrypt sensitive medical data that was previously enumerated via an IDOR vulnerability (CVE-2018-18976) [ref_id=1].
Affected code
The Android application binary was extracted from a rooted device and decompiled to reveal obfuscated Java source code. The obfuscation was weak, allowing an attacker to trivially uncover the decryption logic, including a class containing two methods labeled "a" and "b" along with the cipher type [ref_id=1]. The binary also contained two statically coded strings that served as the AES-CBC encryption key and initialization vector [ref_id=1].
What the fix does
The advisory does not describe a specific patch. The vendor addressed the issue in an update released before 2019-01-15, but no patch diff is provided in the bundle [ref_id=1]. The recommended remediation is to apply strong obfuscation or, more robustly, avoid storing cryptographic keys statically in the application binary. Instead, keys should be derived at runtime or stored in a hardware-backed keystore to prevent extraction via reverse engineering.
Preconditions
- inputAttacker must have physical access to the Android application package (APK) or be able to install it on a rooted device.
- inputAttacker must possess standard reverse-engineering tools (decompiler, binary analysis tools).
Generated on May 25, 2026. Inputs: CWE entries + fix-commit diffs from this CVE's patches. Citations validated against bundle.
References
1- depthsecurity.com/blog/medical-exploitation-you-are-now-diabeticmitrex_refsource_MISC
News mentions
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