CVE-2023-45083 in HyperCloud
Summary
by MITRE • 12/05/2023
An Improper Privilege Management vulnerability exists in HyperCloud that will impact the ability for a user to authenticate against the management plane.
An authenticated admin-level user may be able to delete the "admin" or "serveradmin" users, which prevents authentication from subsequently succeeding.
This issue affects HyperCloud versions 1.0 to any release before 2.1.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/24/2023
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2023-45083 represents a critical improper privilege management flaw within the HyperCloud platform that fundamentally undermines the system's authentication security model. This weakness stems from inadequate access control mechanisms that allow authenticated administrative users to perform operations that should be restricted to prevent system compromise. The vulnerability specifically targets the management plane of HyperCloud, which serves as the primary interface for system administration and configuration. The flaw manifests when an authenticated user with administrative privileges attempts to delete critical system accounts, particularly the "admin" and "serveradmin" user accounts that are essential for maintaining system access and authentication functionality. This issue falls under the CWE-284 category of Improper Access Control, where the system fails to properly enforce access restrictions on critical administrative functions.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability occurs through a privilege escalation pathway where an authenticated administrative user can manipulate the system's user account management functions to remove essential administrative accounts. When the "admin" or "serveradmin" accounts are deleted, the system loses its ability to authenticate legitimate administrative users, creating a denial of service condition that prevents authorized personnel from accessing the management plane. This creates a cascading security failure where the very accounts designed to maintain system integrity and access control become the mechanism for compromising the system's authentication capabilities. The vulnerability's impact extends beyond simple account deletion as it fundamentally breaks the authentication chain that ensures only authorized administrators can access system management functions, effectively locking out legitimate users while potentially creating opportunities for unauthorized access through alternative attack vectors.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe and potentially catastrophic for organizations relying on HyperCloud for their infrastructure management. Once exploited, the vulnerability creates a persistent authentication failure that requires manual intervention to restore system functionality, potentially leading to extended downtime and service disruption. The affected versions spanning from 1.0 to releases before 2.1 indicate this is a long-standing issue that has persisted across multiple iterations of the platform, suggesting inadequate security testing and review processes during development. Organizations utilizing these vulnerable versions face significant risk of operational disruption and potential security breaches, as the vulnerability creates a pathway for attackers to gain persistent access to system management functions. The issue aligns with ATT&CK technique T1078.004 for Valid Accounts and T1566.001 for Phishing, as it enables attackers to manipulate system accounts to achieve unauthorized access while maintaining persistence through compromised administrative access.
The mitigation strategy for CVE-2023-45083 requires immediate patching of affected HyperCloud installations to version 2.1 or later, which contains the necessary privilege management fixes. Organizations should implement strict access control policies that prevent administrative users from performing account deletion operations on critical system accounts, utilizing role-based access controls to enforce the principle of least privilege. System administrators should conduct immediate audits of existing user accounts to identify and restore any deleted administrative accounts, while implementing monitoring mechanisms to detect unauthorized account modification attempts. The vulnerability highlights the importance of proper privilege separation and account management practices, where critical system accounts should be protected from modification or deletion through administrative controls. Security teams should also consider implementing automated account monitoring and alerting systems to detect suspicious account manipulation activities that could indicate exploitation attempts. Organizations should review their overall security posture and ensure that administrative access controls are properly configured to prevent similar privilege management issues from occurring in other components of their infrastructure.