CVE-2017-10237 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-2017-10237 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 realm of virtualization security and demonstrates how flaws in hypervisor implementations can create significant attack surfaces. The affected Oracle VM VirtualBox component serves as the foundational core that manages virtual machine operations, making it a prime target for attackers seeking to compromise virtualized environments. The vulnerability's classification as easily exploitable indicates that minimal prerequisites are required for successful exploitation, though it does demand a high-privileged attacker who already possesses logon credentials to the underlying infrastructure where VirtualBox executes.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and potentially improper memory management within the VirtualBox Core component. Attackers with elevated privileges can leverage this weakness to execute arbitrary code within the VirtualBox execution environment, potentially leading to complete system compromise. The vulnerability's impact extends beyond just the VirtualBox application itself, as demonstrated by the CVSS 3.0 scoring that indicates a potential for significant impact on additional products. This cascading effect occurs because VirtualBox serves as a critical infrastructure component in many enterprise environments, where it may interact with other systems and applications through shared resources, network interfaces, or storage mechanisms.
The operational impact of CVE-2017-10237 manifests through several critical vectors including denial of service conditions that can cause complete system crashes or hangs, effectively rendering the virtualization platform unusable. Additionally, the vulnerability enables unauthorized modifications to the system, allowing attackers to update, insert, or delete data within VirtualBox's accessible data stores. The confidentiality aspect of the attack permits unauthorized read access to sensitive data, potentially exposing virtual machine configurations, guest operating system information, or other confidential virtualization metadata. The CVSS score of 7.3 reflects the balanced severity across confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts, with availability receiving the highest weight due to the potential for complete system disruption.
Security professionals should recognize this vulnerability as aligning with CWE-119 (Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer) and CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation), which are common vectors for privilege escalation and code execution attacks. The attack pattern corresponds to techniques described in the MITRE ATT&CK framework under T1059 (Command and Scripting Interpreter) and T1068 (Exploitation for Privilege Escalation), as attackers would leverage existing elevated privileges to execute malicious code within the VirtualBox environment. Organizations should implement immediate patch management protocols to upgrade to Oracle VM VirtualBox version 5.1.24 or later, while also conducting thorough security assessments of their virtualization infrastructure to identify potential compromise indicators and ensure proper network segmentation to limit the attack surface.
Mitigation strategies should include comprehensive monitoring of VirtualBox processes and system logs for anomalous behavior, implementing strict access controls and privilege separation, and maintaining regular backups of virtual machine configurations. Network-based detection measures should be deployed to monitor for unusual traffic patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts, particularly focusing on communication between virtual machines and host systems. The vulnerability also highlights the importance of maintaining up-to-date virtualization security patches across all infrastructure components, as this flaw demonstrates how a single vulnerability in a hypervisor can create cascading security implications throughout an entire virtualized environment. Organizations should also consider implementing additional security controls such as virtual machine integrity monitoring and runtime application protection to detect and prevent exploitation attempts targeting the VirtualBox Core component.