Privilege escalation in NGINX Controller

1) Untrusted search path

EUVDB-ID: #VU49051

Risk: Low

CVSSv3.1: 5.7 [CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N/E:U/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2020-27730

CWE-ID: CWE-426 - Untrusted Search Path

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a local user to escalate privileges on the system.

The vulnerability exists due to  NGINX Controller Agent does not use absolute paths when calling system utilities. A local user can place a specially crafted file in the agent working directory and execute arbitrary code on the system with root privileges.

Mitigation

Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

NGINX Controller: 1.0.1 - 3.9.0

External links

http://support.f5.com/csp/article/K43530108

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 send a specially crafted request to the affected application in order to exploit this vulnerability.

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.