CVE-2018-5240 in Management Agent
Summary
by MITRE
The Inventory Plugin for Symantec Management Agent prior to 7.6 POST HF7, 8.0 POST HF6, or 8.1 RU7 may be susceptible to a privilege escalation vulnerability, which is a type of issue that allows a user to gain elevated access to resources that are normally protected at lower access levels.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/25/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-5240 affects the Inventory Plugin component of Symantec Management Agent across multiple version ranges including pre-release versions of 7.6 POST HF7, 8.0 POST HF6, and 8.1 RU7. This privilege escalation vulnerability represents a critical security flaw that enables unauthorized users to elevate their access privileges within the system. The issue stems from improper access controls and privilege management mechanisms within the inventory plugin functionality, which is designed to collect and report system information but inadvertently allows malicious actors to exploit weaknesses in the permission model. Such vulnerabilities are particularly dangerous because they can be leveraged to gain unauthorized administrative access to managed systems, potentially leading to complete system compromise.
The technical flaw manifests through inadequate validation of user permissions and insufficient privilege separation within the Symantec Management Agent's inventory collection processes. When the inventory plugin executes with elevated privileges to gather system information, it fails to properly validate the identity and authorization level of the requesting user or process. This weakness creates an opportunity for attackers to manipulate the plugin's behavior through crafted input or by exploiting the underlying system to escalate their privileges. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-276, which specifically addresses improper privilege management, and represents a classic example of insufficient access control mechanisms that allow privilege escalation attacks. The flaw essentially allows a low-privilege user to perform actions that should require higher administrative permissions, effectively bypassing the security controls that are meant to protect sensitive system resources.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple privilege escalation, creating significant risks for enterprise environments that rely on Symantec Management Agent for system inventory and management. Organizations using affected versions of the software face potential exposure to lateral movement attacks where attackers can use the elevated privileges to access other systems within the network, extract sensitive data, or deploy additional malicious payloads. The vulnerability can be exploited remotely or locally depending on the attack vector, making it particularly dangerous in environments where the management agent has network access or where local system compromise is possible. Security teams must consider this vulnerability as a potential entry point for advanced persistent threats, as attackers can use the privilege escalation to maintain persistence and expand their access within the compromised environment.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2018-5240 should prioritize immediate patch deployment to the affected Symantec Management Agent versions, ensuring that organizations upgrade to the patched releases mentioned in the advisory. System administrators should also implement network segmentation to limit access to systems running the management agent and consider disabling unnecessary inventory plugin features that may not be required for operations. Additional security controls such as privilege monitoring, anomaly detection, and regular access reviews should be implemented to identify potential exploitation attempts. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to privilege escalation techniques and can be detected through monitoring for unusual privilege elevation events. Organizations should also conduct comprehensive vulnerability assessments to identify other potential access control weaknesses within their management infrastructure and ensure proper configuration management of all system components to prevent similar issues from arising in the future.