CVE-2019-0119 in Xeon
Summary
by MITRE
Buffer overflow vulnerability in system firmware for Intel(R) Xeon(R) Processor D Family, Intel(R) Xeon(R) Scalable Processor, Intel(R) Server Board, Intel(R) Server System and Intel(R) Compute Module may allow a privileged user to potentially enable escalation of privilege and/or denial of service via local access.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/21/2023
This vulnerability represents a critical buffer overflow flaw located within the system firmware of several Intel processor families and server platforms. The issue affects Intel Xeon Processor D Family, Intel Xeon Scalable Processors, Intel Server Boards, Intel Server Systems, and Intel Compute Modules, indicating a widespread impact across core enterprise computing infrastructure. The vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation mechanisms within the firmware code that processes data from privileged users, creating an exploitable condition where malicious inputs can exceed allocated memory boundaries.
The technical implementation of this flaw involves improper bounds checking during firmware operations, allowing an authenticated user with local access to craft specially formatted inputs that overflow predetermined buffer sizes. This buffer overflow condition can be leveraged to overwrite adjacent memory locations, potentially corrupting critical firmware structures or executing arbitrary code within the firmware context. The vulnerability specifically targets the firmware execution environment where privilege levels are elevated, making it particularly dangerous for systems where firmware-level attacks can bypass traditional operating system security controls.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability creates significant risk for enterprise environments as it enables privilege escalation from a local authenticated user to potentially full administrative control of the firmware infrastructure. The attack vector requires local access, meaning an attacker must already have some level of system access to exploit this weakness, but the potential impact includes complete system compromise and persistent backdoor capabilities. The denial of service aspect of this vulnerability can manifest through system crashes or lockups when the buffer overflow conditions are triggered, potentially causing extended downtime in mission-critical server environments.
The exploitability of this vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1068 which covers 'Local Privilege Escalation' and T1211 which covers 'Exploitation for Defense Evasion'. The underlying cause can be mapped to CWE-121, which describes 'Stack-based Buffer Overflow', and CWE-122, which covers 'Heap-based Buffer Overflow', depending on the specific memory allocation pattern used by the vulnerable firmware components. Organizations should implement immediate firmware updates from Intel to address this vulnerability, while also deploying monitoring solutions to detect anomalous behavior patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. The remediation strategy should include comprehensive firmware inventory management and regular security assessments of server firmware components to identify similar vulnerabilities across the enterprise infrastructure.