CVE-2023-41807 in Pandora FMS
Summary
by MITRE • 11/23/2023
Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in Pandora FMS on all allows Privilege Escalation. This vulnerability allows a user to escalate permissions on the system shell. This issue affects Pandora FMS: from 700 through 773.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/16/2023
The CVE-2023-41807 vulnerability represents a critical improper privilege management flaw within Pandora FMS version 700 through 773, fundamentally compromising system security through privilege escalation capabilities. This vulnerability exists within the Pandora FMS monitoring platform, which is widely deployed for network and system monitoring across enterprise environments. The flaw allows authenticated users to escalate their permissions and gain unauthorized access to system shell functionality, potentially enabling attackers to execute arbitrary commands with elevated privileges. The vulnerability stems from inadequate access control mechanisms that fail to properly validate user permissions when executing system-level operations, creating a pathway for privilege abuse that directly violates fundamental security principles of least privilege and principle of least authority.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability demonstrates a failure in the application's privilege validation logic, where user authentication tokens or session identifiers are not properly verified against required permission levels before executing sensitive system commands. Attackers exploiting this vulnerability can leverage their existing user account to bypass normal access controls and escalate their privileges to system administrator level, effectively breaking down the security boundaries that normally protect critical system functions. This flaw particularly affects the system shell execution components within Pandora FMS, where command-line operations are processed without adequate authorization checks. The vulnerability's impact extends beyond simple privilege escalation as it provides attackers with direct access to underlying system resources, potentially enabling data exfiltration, system modification, or further lateral movement within the network infrastructure.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability poses significant risk to organizations relying on Pandora FMS for critical infrastructure monitoring, as it can lead to complete system compromise and unauthorized access to sensitive monitoring data. The vulnerability's exploitation requires only an authenticated user account, making it particularly dangerous as it can be leveraged by both insider threats and external attackers who have gained initial access to the system. Organizations using affected versions of Pandora FMS face potential data breaches, system integrity compromise, and unauthorized modification of monitoring configurations that could mask malicious activities. The vulnerability's presence in multiple versions from 700 through 773 indicates a systemic issue within the application's security architecture that affects a substantial portion of users.
Security mitigation strategies for CVE-2023-41807 should prioritize immediate patching of affected Pandora FMS versions to address the underlying privilege management flaw. Organizations should implement network segmentation and access controls to limit user access to system shell functionality, while also deploying monitoring solutions to detect unauthorized privilege escalation attempts. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-276, which addresses improper privilege management, and represents a clear violation of the principle of least privilege that is fundamental to secure system design. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to privilege escalation techniques and can be leveraged for lateral movement within compromised environments, making it particularly dangerous for organizations with interconnected systems. Regular security assessments and access control reviews should be implemented to identify and remediate similar privilege management issues that may exist within the broader IT infrastructure, ensuring comprehensive protection against both known and emerging threats.