CVE-2024-23706 - Bypassing Health Data Permissions Due to Improper Input Validation and Achieving Local Escalation of Privilege

The recent CVE-2024-23706 vulnerability has become a significant concern in the cybersecurity ecosystem. This vulnerability resides in multiple locations and potentially allows hackers to bypass health data permissions due to an improper input validation mechanism. Consequently, this leads to a local escalation of privilege, even though no additional execution privileges are required.

The alarming aspect of this vulnerability is that the user interaction is not needed for exploitation, making it relatively easy for attackers to access and manipulate sensitive health information without alerting the user concerned.

To understand how the vulnerability works, consider this code snippet

function validateInput(input) {
  // Insufficient input validation
  if (!input || input.length < 8) {
    return false;
  }

  // Continue processing the input
  return true;
}

function processHealthData(data) {
  if (validateInput(data)) {
    // Access and manipulate health data
  } else {
    // Deny access to health data
  }
}

input = getUserInput();
processHealthData(input);

In this example, the input validation is weak, checking only whether the input exists and has length greater than 7 characters. This insufficiently implemented validation allows an attacker to send in carefully crafted input that may bypass access restrictions and manipulate health data.

Original References

For further details about the initial report on CVE-2024-23706 and the related security advisory, you can refer to the following sources:

- CVE-2024-23706 Advisory (NVD - National Vulnerability Database)
- Official Vulnerability Report by Vendor

Exploit Details

Considering the simplicity of this vulnerability, attackers can craft unique input values that bypass the established condition checks in the validation function. Once bypassed, the attackers have unauthorized access to the health data and additional privileges within the system.

For instance, to exploit this vulnerability, a cybercriminal might craft input data that does not conform to the expected format, yet satisfies the naive input validation conditions. This tactic allows them to access the health data, which should otherwise be protected.

To mitigate this vulnerability, users should update their software to the latest version, where the developers should have implemented proper input validation mechanisms and input sanitization techniques. However, it is essential to ensure that the developers are aware of this vulnerability and have addressed the issue adequately.

Conclusion

CVE-2024-23706 is a critical vulnerability and poses a tremendous security risk. It allows attackers to easily bypass health data permissions and gain unauthorized access to sensitive health data in multiple locations without requiring user interaction. It is crucial that software be updated to a secure version that effectively addresses this vulnerability by correctly implementing the input validation mechanism and thoroughly sanitizing the input.

Timeline

Published on: 05/07/2024 21:15:08 UTC
Last modified on: 07/03/2024 01:48:01 UTC