CVE-2017-10236 in VM VirtualBox
Summary
by MITRE
Vulnerability in the Oracle VM VirtualBox component of Oracle Virtualization (subcomponent: Core). The supported version that is affected is Prior to 5.1.24. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows high privileged attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle VM VirtualBox executes to compromise Oracle VM VirtualBox. While the vulnerability is in Oracle VM VirtualBox, attacks may significantly impact additional products. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized ability to cause a hang or frequently repeatable crash (complete DOS) of Oracle VM VirtualBox as well as unauthorized update, insert or delete access to some of Oracle VM VirtualBox accessible data and unauthorized read access to a subset of Oracle VM VirtualBox accessible data. CVSS 3.0 Base Score 7.3 (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:H).
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 01/03/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2017-10236 resides within Oracle VM VirtualBox's Core subcomponent, representing a critical security flaw that affects versions prior to 5.1.24. This vulnerability operates within the context of a virtualization environment where Oracle VM VirtualBox serves as the primary hypervisor platform. The affected system architecture presents a significant risk because it allows for potential compromise of the virtualization layer itself, which serves as the foundation for numerous virtual machine operations. The vulnerability's classification as easily exploitable indicates that an attacker with high privileged access to the host infrastructure can leverage this flaw to gain control over the virtualization environment. This creates a particularly dangerous scenario where the attacker's access level aligns with the system's security boundaries, making the attack surface more accessible than typical vulnerabilities.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation and memory management within the Core component of Oracle VM VirtualBox. The flaw manifests as a condition where specific malicious inputs can trigger memory corruption or improper handling of virtual machine data structures. This technical weakness allows for a range of malicious activities including the ability to cause system hangs or repeated crashes that effectively result in complete denial of service conditions. The vulnerability's impact extends beyond simple system instability, as it provides unauthorized capabilities to modify the virtualization environment's data integrity. Attackers can exploit this flaw to perform unauthorized update, insert, or delete operations on Oracle VM VirtualBox accessible data, while simultaneously gaining read access to sensitive subsets of the virtualization platform's data. The underlying mechanism typically involves buffer overflow conditions or improper memory deallocation that allows for code execution within the virtualization context.
The operational impact of CVE-2017-10236 represents a severe threat to virtualization security environments, particularly in enterprise settings where Oracle VM VirtualBox serves as a critical infrastructure component. When successfully exploited, this vulnerability enables attackers to completely disrupt virtual machine operations through repeated crashes, effectively rendering the virtualization platform unusable for legitimate operations. The confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts are all significantly compromised, with attackers potentially gaining access to sensitive virtual machine configurations, guest operating system data, and hypervisor management information. The CVSS 3.0 score of 7.3 indicates a high severity threat that affects the entire virtualization ecosystem, as successful exploitation can lead to cascading security failures across multiple virtual machines and hosted applications. The vulnerability's potential to impact additional products stems from the interconnected nature of virtualization environments where compromised hypervisor functionality can affect underlying storage systems, network configurations, and application dependencies.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2017-10236 focus primarily on immediate patch deployment and enhanced access controls within virtualization environments. Organizations should prioritize updating Oracle VM VirtualBox installations to version 5.1.24 or later, which contains the necessary security fixes to address the vulnerability. System administrators must implement strict access controls to limit high privileged accounts to only necessary infrastructure components, reducing the attack surface for potential exploitation. Network segmentation and monitoring solutions should be deployed to detect anomalous behavior patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. The vulnerability's classification as a local privilege escalation issue means that additional security measures such as mandatory access controls, privilege separation, and regular security audits become critical defensive measures. Organizations should also consider implementing virtualization-specific security monitoring tools that can detect abnormal virtual machine behavior or unauthorized modifications to hypervisor configurations. From a compliance perspective, this vulnerability aligns with CWE-125 (Out-of-bounds Read) and CWE-121 (Stack-based Buffer Overflow) categories, while the exploitation patterns correspond to ATT&CK techniques involving privilege escalation and defense evasion. Regular vulnerability assessments and penetration testing should be conducted to ensure that similar vulnerabilities are identified and remediated before they can be exploited by malicious actors.