CVE-2024-20356: Severe Vulnerability Found in Cisco Integrated Management Controller's Web-based Management Interface

A major vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-20356, has been discovered in the web-based management interface of the Cisco Integrated Management Controller (IMC). This vulnerability could enable an authenticated, remote attacker with Administrator-level privileges to carry out command injection attacks on a compromised system and escalate their privileges to root. This security flaw arises due to insufficient validation of user input. The attacker could exploit this flaw by sending malicious commands to the web-based management interface of the vulnerable system, and if the attack is successful, they could elevate their privileges to root.

Vulnerability Details

The Cisco Integrated Management Controller (IMC) is a stand-alone management tool designed for managing and monitoring Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) platforms. This newly discovered vulnerability, CVE-2024-20356, allows authenticated, remote attackers to execute command injection attacks and potentially escalate their privileges to root.

The main cause of this vulnerability is insufficient validation of user input in the web-based management interface. When exploited, an attacker can send malicious commands to the interface, and if successful, gain root privileges on the targeted system.

Here is an example of a code snippet to demonstrate this vulnerability

# Attacker sends crafted command to the web-based management interface
$ curl -X POST -d "command=$(echo 'base64_encoded_malicious_command')" https://[target_IP]/api/v1/

# If exploitation is successful, the response will show the result of the command execution (e.g. payload executed with root privileges)
{
  "status": "success",
  "output": "base64_encoded_output_of_executed_command"
}

More details and information about the vulnerability can be found in the following resources

1. Cisco Security Advisory: https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20240214-imc-root
2. CVE-2024-20356 Vulnerability Details: https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-20356
3. National Vulnerability Database (NVD) Entry: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-20356

Exploit Details

To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must first authenticate to the web-based management interface with Administrator-level privileges. Then, the attacker can send carefully crafted commands containing malicious payloads to the interface, tricking the system into executing these payloads with root privileges.

This enables the attacker to remotely control the targeted system, potentially gaining access to sensitive information, disrupting the system's operation, or even deploying additional payloads to further compromise the infrastructure.

Conclusion

The CVE-2024-20356 vulnerability found in Cisco Integrated Management Controller's web-based management interface has severe consequences if exploited. Users are urged to apply patches and updates provided by Cisco to mitigate the risk of such attacks. Preventive measures such as limited access to the management interface and continuous monitoring of the system for signs of tampering can also lower the risk of successful exploitation.

Timeline

Published on: 04/24/2024 20:15:07 UTC
Last modified on: 06/04/2024 17:40:42 UTC