CVE-2022-35801 in Azure Site Recovery VMWare to Azure
Summary
by MITRE • 08/10/2022
Azure Site Recovery Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2022-35774, CVE-2022-35775, CVE-2022-35780, CVE-2022-35781, CVE-2022-35782, CVE-2022-35783, CVE-2022-35784, CVE-2022-35785, CVE-2022-35786, CVE-2022-35787, CVE-2022-35788, CVE-2022-35789, CVE-2022-35790, CVE-2022-35791, CVE-2022-35799, CVE-2022-35800, CVE-2022-35802, CVE-2022-35807, CVE-2022-35808, CVE-2022-35809, CVE-2022-35810, CVE-2022-35811, CVE-2022-35812, CVE-2022-35813, CVE-2022-35814, CVE-2022-35815, CVE-2022-35816, CVE-2022-35817, CVE-2022-35818, CVE-2022-35819.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/04/2022
The Azure Site Recovery service represents a critical component within Microsoft's cloud infrastructure, providing disaster recovery capabilities for virtual machines and physical servers across hybrid environments. This service enables organizations to replicate workloads to Azure or other target locations, ensuring business continuity and data protection. The vulnerability identified as CVE-2022-35801 specifically targets the privilege management mechanisms within this service, creating a potential pathway for unauthorized elevation of access rights. The flaw exists within the authentication and authorization processes that govern how users interact with recovery services, potentially allowing malicious actors to escalate their privileges beyond what was initially granted. This vulnerability is particularly concerning given the sensitive nature of disaster recovery systems, which often contain critical business data and system configurations that could be exploited for broader network infiltration.
This elevation of privilege vulnerability stems from improper validation of user permissions and access controls within Azure Site Recovery's administrative interfaces. The technical implementation fails to adequately verify the authenticity and authorization level of users attempting to perform privileged operations, creating a condition where an attacker with limited access could potentially manipulate system controls to gain higher privileges. The flaw likely involves insufficient input sanitization or inadequate session management that allows privilege escalation through crafted requests or manipulated parameters. According to CWE classification, this vulnerability aligns with CWE-276, which addresses improper privileges, and potentially CWE-798, if hardcoded credentials are involved in the flawed authorization mechanism. The vulnerability manifests when legitimate users attempt to perform administrative functions, but the service does not properly validate their elevated permissions before executing privileged operations.
The operational impact of CVE-2022-35801 extends beyond simple privilege escalation, potentially enabling attackers to compromise entire recovery environments and access sensitive data. An adversary exploiting this vulnerability could gain access to backup configurations, recovery point information, and potentially access to source systems that are being protected by the Site Recovery service. This access could facilitate lateral movement within networks, data exfiltration, or the deployment of additional malicious tools through compromised recovery points. The attack surface includes not only direct system access but also the potential for chaining with other vulnerabilities within the Azure ecosystem, as the elevated privileges could enable access to interconnected services and resources. Organizations using Azure Site Recovery for critical workloads face significant risk, as this vulnerability could allow attackers to disrupt business continuity plans or gain unauthorized access to sensitive information that should remain protected.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2022-35801 should prioritize immediate patch deployment from Microsoft, as the vulnerability requires core service updates to address the underlying privilege validation flaws. Network segmentation and monitoring of Site Recovery service communications can help detect anomalous privilege escalation attempts, while implementing just-in-time access controls and multi-factor authentication for administrative accounts provides additional protective layers. Security teams should conduct comprehensive audits of Site Recovery configurations to identify any unauthorized access patterns or privilege anomalies that may have occurred prior to patch deployment. According to ATT&CK framework, this vulnerability maps to T1078 for valid accounts and T1566 for credential harvesting, making defensive measures focused on account monitoring and access control particularly important. Organizations should also consider implementing automated security scanning tools that can detect unauthorized privilege escalation attempts and maintain detailed logging of all administrative activities within Site Recovery environments to support forensic analysis and incident response efforts.