CVE-2020-5790 in Nagios XI
Summary
by MITRE • 10/21/2020
Cross-site request forgery in Nagios XI 5.7.3 allows a remote attacker to perform sensitive application actions by tricking legitimate users into clicking a crafted link.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/22/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2020-5790 represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw discovered in Nagios XI version 5.7.3, a widely deployed network monitoring and infrastructure management platform. This vulnerability exists within the web interface of the application and allows remote attackers to manipulate legitimate user sessions through deceptive means. The flaw specifically affects the application's handling of user authentication and authorization mechanisms, creating a pathway for unauthorized actions to be executed on behalf of authenticated users without their knowledge or consent.
This CSRF vulnerability stems from the application's failure to implement proper anti-forgery tokens or validation mechanisms for state-changing requests. When legitimate users navigate to maliciously crafted web pages or click on manipulated links, the application processes these requests as if they originated from authenticated users with valid session tokens. The technical implementation lacks sufficient verification of request authenticity, allowing attackers to construct malicious URLs or web pages that automatically submit requests to the Nagios XI interface. This flaw aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses Cross-Site Request Forgery vulnerabilities in web applications.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is significant for organizations relying on Nagios XI for critical infrastructure monitoring. Attackers could potentially perform sensitive operations such as modifying system configurations, creating or deleting users, changing monitoring settings, or accessing restricted administrative functions. Given that Nagios XI is commonly used for monitoring critical network infrastructure, a successful exploitation could lead to complete system compromise, unauthorized access to monitoring data, or disruption of critical services. The vulnerability affects the integrity and availability of the monitoring platform, potentially leaving organizations blind to security incidents or unauthorized system modifications.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including applying the vendor-provided security patches, enabling proper CSRF protection mechanisms, and reviewing existing access controls and session management policies. The recommended approach involves implementing anti-forgery tokens for all state-changing operations, validating the referer header for requests, and ensuring that all administrative functions require explicit user confirmation. Security teams should also consider network segmentation, monitoring for suspicious administrative activities, and implementing additional authentication layers such as two-factor authentication to reduce the impact of potential exploitation. This vulnerability demonstrates the importance of maintaining current security practices and following the principle of least privilege in critical infrastructure monitoring systems. The flaw also aligns with several ATT&CK techniques including privilege escalation and persistence mechanisms that attackers might leverage to maintain access to compromised systems.