Vulnerabilities, Zero Days, Exploit, Report

A pair of actively exploited Microsoft zero-day vulnerabilities highlighted an active November Patch Tuesday, which also saw updates from several IT vendors.

Overview

Cyble Research and Intelligence Labs (CRIL) researchers investigated 22 vulnerabilities and eight dark web exploits from Nov. 6 to 12 and highlighted nine vulnerabilities that merit high-priority attention from security teams.

CRIL researchers also identified six dark web exploits that are at high risk in Cyble’s weekly IT vulnerability report to clients, which examined two Microsoft zero-days and vulnerabilities from Veeam, Cisco, HPE Aruba, D-Link, Citrix, and others.

Security teams should identify the vulnerabilities that are present in their environments and apply patches and mitigations promptly.

The Week’s Top IT Vulnerabilities

Here are the top IT vulnerabilities identified by Cyble threat intelligence researchers this week.

CVE-2024-43451 is an NTLM hash disclosure spoofing vulnerability found in all supported versions of Windows that has been exploited in the wild since at least April. Researchers disclosed this week that suspected Russian hackers exploited it for zero-day attacks targeting Ukrainian entities. The vulnerability was triggered by phishing emails that contained links to download a malicious Internet shortcut file, which, when interacted with, triggered the vulnerability to connect to a remote server and download malware.

CVE-2024-49039 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Windows Task Scheduler that has also been attacked. From a low-privilege AppContainer, an attacker could elevate their privileges and execute code or access resources at a higher integrity level than that of the AppContainer execution environment, Microsoft said. A successful exploit could allow an attacker to execute RPC functions that are restricted to privileged accounts.

CVE-2024-49040 is a high-severity spoofing vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange Server that allows attackers to forge legitimate senders on incoming emails and makes malicious messages much more effective. A researcher reported a Proof of Concept (PoC) for this vulnerability, but Microsoft paused the update after some customers reported issues with Transport rules stopping periodically after the update was installed.

CVE-2024-40711 is a critical vulnerability in Veeam VBR (Veeam Backup & Replication) servers caused by the deserialization of untrusted data weakness that unauthenticated threat actors can exploit to gain remote code execution (RCE). Previously, the vulnerability was observed to be leveraged in Akira and Fog ransomware attacks. At present, researchers have observed that it is now exploited to deploy a newly identified strain of Frag ransomware.

CVE-2024-42509 and CVE-2024-47460 are command injection vulnerabilities in AOS-8 and AOS-10 versions of HPE Aruba’s network operating system. The flaw lies in the underlying CLI service, which could lead to unauthenticated remote code execution by sending specially crafted packets destined to the PAPI (Aruba’s Access Point management protocol) UDP port (8211). Successful exploitation results in the ability to execute arbitrary code as a privileged user on the underlying operating system. Cyble researchers detailed the vulnerabilities and others in a separate blog.

CVE-2024-20418 is a critical vulnerability in the web-based management interface of Cisco Unified Industrial Wireless Software for Cisco Ultra-Reliable Wireless Backhaul (URWB) Access Points, which is a specialized software solution designed to provide robust and reliable wireless connectivity for industrial applications. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted HTTP requests to the web-based management interface of an affected system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on the underlying operating system of the affected device. Cyble also covered this vulnerability in a separate blog.

CVE-2024-10914 is a critical command injection vulnerability in end-of-life (EOL) D-Link network-attached storage (NAS) devices. Unauthenticated attackers can exploit it to inject arbitrary shell commands by sending malicious HTTP GET requests to vulnerable D-Link NAS devices exposed online. Researchers observed that attackers are exploiting the vulnerability with publicly available exploit codes.

CVE-2024-11068 is a critical incorrect use of privileged API vulnerability impacting the end-of-life D-Link DSL6740C modem. The vulnerability allows unauthenticated remote attackers to modify any user’s password by leveraging the API, thereby granting access to Web, SSH, and Telnet services using that user’s account. Since D-Link recently announced that it will not provide patches or updates for this EOL product, the vulnerability poses a significant risk to users.

Vulnerabilities and Exploits on Underground Forums

CRIL researchers also observed multiple Telegram channels and underground forums where threat actors shared or discussed exploits weaponizing vulnerabilities. Those vulnerabilities include:

CVE-2024-39205: A critical vulnerability affecting pyload-ng, versions 0.5.0b3.dev85 running under Python 3.11 or below. This vulnerability allows attackers to execute arbitrary code through crafted HTTP requests, which can lead to complete system compromise.

CVE-2024-50340: A high-security vulnerability affecting the Symfony PHP framework. The vulnerability allows an attacker to manipulate the application’s environment or debug mode by sending specially crafted query strings.

CVE-2024-8068 and CVE-2024-8069: These recently identified vulnerabilities in Citrix Session Recording pose significant security risks for Citrix environments. CVE-2024-8068 allows for privilege escalation to the NetworkService Account access level, and the vulnerability CVE-2024-8069 allows for limited remote code execution with the privileges of a NetworkService Account.

CVE-2024-47295: A high-severity vulnerability identified in the SEIKO EPSON Web Config allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to set an arbitrary administrator password on affected devices. The vulnerability results from an insecure initial password configuration in which the administrator password is left blank.

CRIL researchers also observed a threat actor discussing the critical vulnerability CVE-2023-38408, which affects 26 million internet-facing OpenSSH assets detected by Cyble. The vulnerability allows for remote code execution (RCE) when the SSH agent is forwarded to an attacker-controlled system.

Cyble Recommendations

To protect against these vulnerabilities and exploits, organizations should implement the following best practices:

  • To mitigate vulnerabilities and protect against exploits, regularly update all software and hardware systems with the latest patches from official vendors.

  • Develop a comprehensive patch management strategy that includes inventory management, patch assessment, testing, deployment, and verification. Automate the process where possible to ensure consistency and efficiency.

  • Divide your network into distinct segments to isolate critical assets from less secure areas. Use firewalls, VLANs, and access controls to limit access and reduce the attack surface exposed to potential threats.

  • Implement immutable, air-gapped, ransomware-resistant backup procedures for sensitive and critical data.

  • Create and maintain an incident response plan that outlines procedures for detecting, responding to, and recovering from security incidents. Regularly test and update the plan to ensure its effectiveness and alignment with current threats.

  • Implement comprehensive monitoring and logging solutions to detect and analyze suspicious activities. Use SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) systems to aggregate and correlate logs for real-time threat detection and response.

  • Subscribe to security advisories and alerts from official vendors, CERTs, and other authoritative sources. Regularly review and assess the impact of these alerts on your systems and take appropriate actions.

  • Conduct regular vulnerability assessment and penetration testing (VAPT) exercises to identify and remediate vulnerabilities in your systems. Complement these exercises with periodic security audits to ensure compliance with security policies and standards.

Conclusion

These vulnerabilities highlight the urgent need for security teams to prioritize patching critical vulnerabilities in major products and those that could be weaponized as entry points for wider attacks. With increasing discussions of these exploits on dark web forums, organizations must stay vigilant and proactive. Implementing strong security practices is essential to protect sensitive data and maintain system integrity.

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