CVE-2017-6224 in Zone Director Controller
Summary
by MITRE
Ruckus Wireless Zone Director Controller firmware releases ZD9.x, ZD10.0.0.x, ZD10.0.1.x (less than 10.0.1.0.17 MR1 release) and Ruckus Wireless Unleashed AP Firmware releases 200.0.x, 200.1.x, 200.2.x, 200.3.x, 200.4.x. contain OS Command Injection vulnerabilities that could allow local authenticated users to execute arbitrary privileged commands on the underlying operating system by appending those commands in the Common Name field in the Certificate Generation Request.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/24/2019
The CVE-2017-6224 vulnerability represents a critical operating system command injection flaw affecting Ruckus Wireless Zone Director controllers and Unleashed access point firmware across multiple version ranges. This vulnerability resides in the certificate generation request processing functionality where the system fails to properly sanitize user input in the Common Name field, creating an avenue for malicious command execution. The flaw specifically impacts firmware versions including ZD9.x, ZD10.0.0.x, ZD10.0.1.x (excluding 10.0.1.0.17 MR1), and various Unleashed AP firmware releases from 200.0.x through 200.4.x, making it a widespread issue within the Ruckus wireless ecosystem.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and sanitization within the certificate generation workflow. When a user submits a certificate request containing a maliciously crafted Common Name field, the system directly incorporates this input into operating system commands without proper escaping or filtering mechanisms. This design flaw allows authenticated local users to inject arbitrary commands that execute with the privileges of the affected service account, potentially escalating to system-level access. The vulnerability maps to CWE-77 in the Common Weakness Enumeration catalog, which specifically addresses command injection vulnerabilities where untrusted data is used to construct operating system commands.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses significant risks to wireless network infrastructure security as it requires only local authentication to exploit, meaning any user with legitimate access to the device can leverage this flaw. The impact extends beyond simple command execution to potentially allow attackers to gain root access to the underlying operating system, modify network configurations, extract sensitive data, or establish persistent backdoors. Network administrators face the challenge of securing devices that may be compromised without external network access, as the vulnerability exists within the device's local management interface. This type of vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1059.001 for command and scripting interpreter, where adversaries execute code through operating system interfaces.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including applying the vendor-provided patches and updates for all affected firmware versions, particularly focusing on the 10.0.1.0.17 MR1 release which addresses this specific issue. Network segmentation and access control measures should be strengthened to limit local administrative access to these devices, while monitoring systems should be configured to detect unusual command execution patterns. Additionally, administrators should review and restrict certificate generation privileges to only essential personnel, and consider implementing input validation controls at multiple layers of the system architecture. Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning should be conducted to identify similar command injection vulnerabilities in other network infrastructure components, as this represents a common attack vector that requires continuous monitoring and defense-in-depth approaches to prevent exploitation.