CVE-2026-116755 in HyperCloud
Summary
by MITRE • 10/31/2026
Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command ('Command Injection') in the Orchestrator component of SoftIron HyperCloud allows an authenticated user with access to the management plane to execute arbitrary operating system commands on hypervisor hosts as the privileged orchestration user. Attacker-controlled virtual machine template content (for example, the VM DESCRIPTION field) is delivered to hosts through a shell here-document whose terminator is not quoted, so shell expansion and here-document terminator injection are performed on that content during virtual machine lifecycle operations such as deploy, migrate, and network setup. Exploitation requires valid credentials, access to the management plane (owning a virtual machine alone is not sufficient), and a lifecycle operation that reaches the affected host. This issue affects the Orchestrator component of SoftIron HyperCloud from 1.0 through 2.6.17 and is fixed in 2.6.18.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/31/2026
The vulnerability identified as Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command, commonly known as Command Injection, resides within the Orchestrator component of SoftIron HyperCloud software versions ranging from 1.0 through 2.6.17. This security flaw allows an authenticated user who possesses access to the management plane to execute arbitrary operating system commands on hypervisor hosts with the privileges of the privileged orchestration user. The root cause lies in how the application handles input data during virtual machine lifecycle operations, specifically when processing attacker-controlled content such as VM DESCRIPTION fields within a virtual machine template. This maliciously crafted content is transmitted to the underlying host systems via a shell here-document mechanism where the terminator string is not properly quoted or escaped. Consequently, the operating system shell interprets and expands special characters contained within this input before evaluating the here-document terminator, leading to unintended command execution rather than treating the data as literal text.
From a technical perspective, the exploitation vector relies on the interaction between the application layer and the underlying OS shell during critical infrastructure operations such as deployment, migration, or network configuration. When these lifecycle events are triggered for a virtual machine containing injected special elements like backticks, dollar signs, or semicolons within its description metadata, the unquoted here-document terminator fails to isolate this input from executable code. This structural flaw enables an attacker to inject arbitrary commands that run with elevated privileges on the hypervisor host. The severity of this issue is compounded by the fact that it grants access beyond the virtual machine boundary, effectively breaking out of the guest environment to compromise the underlying physical or virtual infrastructure hosting the orchestration services.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe, as successful exploitation results in full control over the affected hypervisor hosts at the level of the privileged orchestration user. This level of access allows an attacker to manipulate system configurations, install persistent backdoors, exfiltrate sensitive data from other virtual machines on the same host, or pivot further into the broader network infrastructure. It is important to note that exploitation requires specific conditions: the attacker must have valid credentials for the management plane and direct access to it; merely owning a single virtual machine without administrative privileges over the orchestration interface is insufficient to trigger this vulnerability. Furthermore, the attack payload only executes if the malicious template content reaches an affected host during one of the specified lifecycle operations that invoke the vulnerable code path.
This flaw aligns with CWE-78, which classifies Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command as a critical category of injection vulnerabilities where software fails to neutralize special elements before using them in a command. In terms of offensive security frameworks, this vulnerability maps to ATT&CK technique T1059, specifically sub-techniques involving command and script interpreters such as Unix Shell or Windows Command Shell. The ability to execute arbitrary commands on the host system also relates to privilege escalation vectors where an attacker leverages application-level access to gain higher OS privileges. To mitigate this risk, organizations running SoftIron HyperCloud versions prior to 2.6.18 must immediately upgrade to version 2.6.18 or later, which addresses the improper quoting of here-document terminators and ensures that user-supplied input is correctly sanitized before being passed to system shells. Until patching is complete, strict access controls should be enforced on the management plane to limit exposure to trusted administrators only, thereby reducing the attack surface available for exploitation.