CVE-2022-35807 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-2022-35801, CVE-2022-35802, 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 and recover their workloads to secondary locations, making it a prime target for attackers seeking to escalate privileges within cloud environments. The vulnerability identified as CVE-2022-35807 specifically targets the privilege escalation mechanisms within this recovery service, potentially allowing unauthorized users to gain elevated access rights that should be restricted to authorized administrators only. The flaw exists within the service's authentication and authorization framework, creating a pathway for malicious actors to bypass normal security controls and assume higher privileges within the Azure environment.
This elevation of privilege vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation and insufficient access control mechanisms within the Azure Site Recovery service implementation. The technical flaw manifests when the service processes certain administrative requests or API calls that should require specific authorization levels but instead allow for privilege escalation through malformed parameters or manipulated request sequences. Attackers can exploit this weakness by crafting specially crafted requests that manipulate the service's internal permission checking logic, effectively allowing them to perform administrative operations without proper authentication. The vulnerability specifically affects how the service validates user credentials and permissions during critical recovery operations, creating a window where unauthorized access can be gained through manipulation of the authentication flow.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple privilege escalation, potentially enabling attackers to compromise entire cloud environments through lateral movement and data exfiltration. Once an attacker successfully exploits this vulnerability, they can access sensitive recovery configurations, manipulate replication settings, and potentially gain access to backup data or other protected resources within the Azure tenant. The implications are particularly severe given that Azure Site Recovery is often used to protect critical business applications and data, making this vulnerability a significant threat to enterprise security. Organizations using Azure Site Recovery may face unauthorized access to their disaster recovery infrastructure, potentially allowing attackers to disrupt recovery operations or gain access to backup data that could be used for further attacks. The vulnerability also creates opportunities for attackers to establish persistent access within the environment, as recovery systems are often designed to be highly available and accessible, making them attractive targets for long-term compromise.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability should focus on immediate patch deployment and enhanced monitoring of Azure Site Recovery operations. Microsoft has released security updates addressing this specific flaw, and organizations should prioritize applying these patches to all affected Azure Site Recovery services. Additionally, implementing comprehensive monitoring of administrative API calls and access patterns can help detect exploitation attempts before they succeed. Organizations should also review their Azure role-based access control configurations to ensure that least privilege principles are properly enforced, particularly for Site Recovery service accounts and administrative users. The implementation of Azure Security Center and other monitoring solutions can provide additional layers of protection by detecting anomalous behavior patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. Security teams should also consider implementing network segmentation and access controls that limit direct access to Site Recovery services, reducing the attack surface available to potential adversaries. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-284, which describes improper access control mechanisms, and maps to ATT&CK technique T1078 for valid accounts and privilege escalation, highlighting the importance of proper access control implementation and continuous monitoring of administrative activities within cloud environments.