CVE-2026-107510 in NIOS
Summary
by MITRE • 10/08/2026
An authenticated high privilege user can inject arguments in troubleshooting commands resulting in privilege escalation.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/08/2026
The vulnerability described constitutes a critical security flaw within the system's diagnostic or maintenance subsystem, specifically affecting the handling of input parameters for troubleshooting commands. Although the initial attack vector requires authentication and elevated privileges, the core issue lies in improper validation and sanitization of command-line arguments passed to underlying operating system utilities or internal scripts. This type of vulnerability is classically categorized under CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command, commonly known as OS Command Injection. The flaw arises because the application fails to sufficiently verify that user-supplied input conforms to expected formats before passing it directly to a shell interpreter or command execution function. Consequently, an attacker who has obtained high-level credentials can manipulate these arguments to execute arbitrary system commands with the same elevated privileges as the vulnerable process.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability allows for significant privilege escalation and lateral movement within the network infrastructure. While the requirement for authentication might seem like a mitigating factor, it does not eliminate risk in environments where administrative accounts are compromised through phishing, credential stuffing, or insider threats. Once authenticated, an attacker can inject malicious payloads such as reverse shells, data exfiltration scripts, or commands to disable security logging and monitoring tools. This capability effectively grants the attacker full control over the affected system, enabling them to pivot to other systems, access sensitive databases, or establish persistent backdoors. The impact is severe because it bypasses standard perimeter defenses that rely on network-level controls rather than application-layer input validation.
The technical mechanism typically involves string concatenation where user input is directly embedded into a command string without proper escaping of special characters like semicolons, ampersands, pipes, or backticks. For instance, if the troubleshooting tool accepts an IP address as an argument and passes it to a ping utility via a shell call, an attacker could supply an input such as 192.168.1.1; rm -rf / instead of a valid IP. The semicolon acts as a command separator in many shells, causing the system to execute the subsequent malicious commands after the intended diagnostic operation completes or fails. This behavior is consistent with ATT&CK technique T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter, where adversaries use built-in operating system tools to perform actions that facilitate further compromise of the target environment.
Mitigation strategies must focus on strict input validation and secure coding practices. Developers should implement allow-lists for acceptable inputs rather than relying solely on block lists or regex patterns designed to filter out malicious characters. When command execution is unavoidable, it is imperative to use APIs that do not invoke a shell interpreter, such as execve in Unix-like systems or Process.Start with explicit argument arrays in Windows environments, thereby preventing the interpretation of special characters as control operators. Additionally, applying the principle of least privilege ensures that even if injection occurs, the compromised process runs with minimal permissions necessary for its function, limiting the potential damage. Regular security code reviews and static application security testing focused on command injection patterns are essential to identify and remediate such flaws before deployment in production environments.