Privilege escalation in VMware vRealize Operations

1) Privilege escalation

EUVDB-ID: #VU16594

Risk: Low

CVSSv3.1: 5.8 [CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2018-6978

CWE-ID: CWE-264 - Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a local attacker with administrative privileges to gain elevated privileges on the target system.

The vulnerability exists due to improper permissions of support scripts. A local attacker of the vROps application with shell access can elevate his privileges to root on a vROps machine.

Mitigation

The vulnerability has been addressed in the versions 6.6.1.11286876, 6.7.0.11286837, 7.0.0.11287810.

Vulnerable software versions

VMware Aria Operations (formerly vRealize Operations): 6.6.0 - 7.0.0

External links

http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2018-0031.html

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

No. This vulnerability can be exploited locally. The attacker should have authentication credentials and successfully authenticate on the system.

How the attacker can exploit this vulnerability?

The attacker would have to trick the victim to open a a specially crafted file.

The attacker would have to login to the system and perform certain actions in order to exploit this vulnerability.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.