CVE-2024-23443 in Kibana
Summary
by MITRE • 06/19/2024
A high-privileged user, allowed to create custom osquery packs 17 could affect the availability of Kibana by uploading a maliciously crafted osquery pack.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/20/2024
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-23443 represents a critical security flaw in the Kibana platform that allows high-privileged users with osquery pack creation capabilities to potentially disrupt system availability through malicious payload injection. This vulnerability specifically targets the osquery integration functionality within Kibana, where users with elevated permissions can craft and upload custom osquery packs that may contain malicious code or resource-intensive queries. The flaw exists in the validation and execution mechanisms that process these custom packs, creating an attack surface where maliciously constructed queries could lead to denial of service conditions or system instability. The security implications are particularly severe because the affected users already possess elevated privileges, making the attack vector more dangerous and harder to detect within normal security monitoring procedures.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation and sanitization within Kibana's osquery pack processing pipeline. When users upload custom osquery packs, the system fails to properly validate the content against known malicious patterns or resource consumption limits. This allows attackers to craft packs containing queries that either consume excessive system resources, leading to performance degradation or complete system unresponsiveness, or contain malformed code that can trigger crashes in the underlying osquery execution engine. The vulnerability is categorized under CWE-20 as "Improper Input Validation" and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499.004 for "Elevated Execution with Systemd" and T1566.001 for "Phishing with Social Engineering" when considering how attackers might gain elevated access to leverage this vulnerability. The flaw demonstrates a classic privilege escalation risk where existing elevated permissions are exploited to cause availability disruption rather than direct privilege elevation.
The operational impact of CVE-2024-23443 extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially compromise the entire monitoring infrastructure that Kibana provides. Organizations relying on osquery integration for security monitoring and compliance reporting face significant risks when attackers exploit this vulnerability, as the malicious packs could be designed to target specific system resources or create cascading failures across multiple monitored systems. The availability disruption could manifest as complete Kibana unresponsiveness, increased latency in query execution, or resource exhaustion that prevents legitimate users from accessing critical security information. This vulnerability particularly affects organizations using Kibana for security operations centers where uptime and reliability are paramount, as the disruption could mask actual security incidents or prevent security teams from responding to genuine threats. The attack could also serve as a stepping stone for more sophisticated attacks that leverage the system instability created by the malicious osquery packs.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2024-23443 should focus on implementing comprehensive input validation, resource limiting, and privilege segregation within the osquery integration framework. Organizations should enforce strict validation of all uploaded osquery packs through automated scanning for known malicious patterns and resource consumption limits that prevent excessive CPU or memory usage. The implementation of sandboxing mechanisms for osquery pack execution can isolate potentially malicious queries from the main Kibana processes, preventing system-wide disruption. Access controls should be tightened to ensure that only trusted administrators can create and upload osquery packs, with additional audit logging implemented to track all pack creation and modification activities. Security teams should also implement monitoring for unusual resource consumption patterns that could indicate exploitation attempts, and establish regular vulnerability assessments of the osquery integration components. The remediation approach should align with NIST cybersecurity framework guidelines for vulnerability management and include regular security updates, proper access control implementation, and comprehensive incident response procedures that account for potential availability disruption scenarios.