CVE-2022-48496 in EMUI
Summary
by MITRE • 06/19/2023
Vulnerability of lax app identity verification in the pre-authorization function.Successful exploitation of this vulnerability will cause malicious apps to become pre-authorized.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/15/2023
The vulnerability described in CVE-2022-48496 represents a critical weakness in the application pre-authorization mechanism where insufficient identity verification procedures allow unauthorized applications to bypass legitimate authorization processes. This flaw resides in the security controls that are meant to validate application authenticity before granting pre-authorization status, creating an opening for malicious actors to exploit the system's trust model. The vulnerability manifests as a failure in the authentication and authorization framework that should prevent unauthorized applications from gaining privileged access through the pre-authorization pathway.
This security gap constitutes a direct violation of fundamental security principles and aligns with CWE-287, which addresses improper authentication issues in software systems. The technical implementation flaw likely involves inadequate validation of application signatures, certificates, or other identity attributes that should serve as proof of legitimate application ownership or authorization. Attackers can exploit this weakness by crafting malicious applications that appear to meet the pre-authorization criteria through falsified identity information or by leveraging weaknesses in the verification algorithms that process application identity claims.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple unauthorized access, as it fundamentally undermines the integrity of the authorization system and can lead to cascading security failures. When malicious applications gain pre-authorized status, they can potentially access restricted resources, perform privileged operations, or establish persistence within the system environment. This vulnerability affects the core security architecture by compromising the trust model that protects system resources from unauthorized access. The implications are particularly severe in environments where pre-authorization serves as a gatekeeping mechanism for sensitive operations or data access, as it allows adversaries to bypass critical security controls that should prevent unauthorized application execution.
Organizations affected by this vulnerability should implement immediate mitigations including strengthening the application identity verification processes, implementing multi-factor authentication for pre-authorization requests, and conducting comprehensive audits of existing pre-authorized applications. The remediation approach should align with ATT&CK technique T1548.002 which addresses abuse of application permissions and privilege escalation. Security teams must establish more robust certificate validation procedures, implement proper application signing requirements, and ensure that pre-authorization systems require multiple forms of verification before granting access privileges. Additionally, continuous monitoring of pre-authorized application behavior and regular security assessments should be implemented to detect and prevent exploitation attempts. The vulnerability highlights the importance of maintaining strong identity verification processes and demonstrates how insufficient authentication controls can compromise entire security frameworks through a single point of failure in the authorization pipeline.