CVE-2018-7101 in iLO 4
Summary
by MITRE
A potential remote denial of service security vulnerability has been identified in HPE Integrated Lights Out 4 prior to v2.60 and iLO 5 for Gen 10 servers prior to v1.30.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/19/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-7101 represents a critical remote denial of service flaw affecting HPE Integrated Lights Out 4 management controllers and iLO 5 firmware implementations. This weakness resides in the remote management capabilities of HPE servers, specifically targeting the firmware versions prior to 2.60 for iLO 4 and 1.30 for iLO 5. The issue stems from inadequate input validation mechanisms within the remote management interface, creating potential attack vectors that could allow unauthorized remote exploitation. Organizations utilizing HPE Gen 10 servers with affected firmware versions face significant operational risks as this vulnerability could compromise the availability of critical out-of-band management functions.
The technical flaw manifests through insufficient validation of incoming network requests to the iLO management interface, particularly affecting the HTTP and HTTPS protocol implementations used for remote administration. Attackers can potentially craft malicious requests that trigger buffer overflows or memory corruption conditions within the firmware's network processing components. This vulnerability operates at the application layer of the network stack, leveraging the inherent trust relationships between management interfaces and remote clients. The flaw specifically impacts the handling of malformed HTTP headers and request parameters, which when processed by the vulnerable firmware versions can lead to system instability and complete service disruption.
The operational impact of CVE-2018-7101 extends beyond simple service interruption as it directly affects the availability of critical server management functions. System administrators lose the ability to remotely monitor, manage, and troubleshoot affected servers through their iLO interfaces, potentially leading to extended downtime during critical maintenance windows. This vulnerability particularly threatens enterprise environments where remote server management is essential for operations, as it can disable the primary means of system recovery and diagnostics. The attack surface is broad as the vulnerability affects both iLO 4 and iLO 5 implementations across multiple server generations, making it a significant concern for large-scale deployments.
Organizations should immediately implement firmware updates to versions 2.60 or later for iLO 4 and 1.30 or later for iLO 5 to remediate this vulnerability. Network segmentation and access controls should be enhanced to limit exposure of management interfaces to trusted networks only. Monitoring systems should be configured to detect unusual traffic patterns or failed authentication attempts that may indicate exploitation attempts. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-121 and CWE-122 categories related to buffer overflow conditions, and maps to ATT&CK technique T1203 for legitimate credentials and T1499 for network denial of service. Security teams should conduct comprehensive vulnerability assessments across their entire server fleet to identify all potentially affected systems, as the impact extends beyond immediate service disruption to include potential compromise of system integrity and availability.