Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7/8/9 libreswan Client Plugin for NetworkManager code injection

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7/8/9. This issue affects some unknown processing of the component libreswan Client Plugin for NetworkManager. The manipulation leads to Local Privilege Escalation. This vulnerability is listed as CVE-2024-9050. The attack must be carried out locally. There is no available exploit.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7/8/9. It has been rated as critical. This issue affects some unknown processing of the component libreswan Client Plugin for NetworkManager. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a local privilege escalation vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-94. The product constructs all or part of a code segment using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the syntax or behavior of the intended code segment. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

A flaw was found in the libreswan client plugin for NetworkManager (NetkworkManager-libreswan), where it fails to properly sanitize the VPN configuration from the local unprivileged user. In this configuration, composed by a key-value format, the plugin fails to escape special characters, leading the application to interpret values as keys. One of the most critical parameters that could be abused by a malicious user is the `leftupdown`key. This key takes an executable command as a value and is used to specify what executes as a callback in NetworkManager-libreswan to retrieve configuration settings back to NetworkManager. As NetworkManager uses Polkit to allow an unprivileged user to control the system's network configuration, a malicious actor could achieve local privilege escalation and potential code execution as root in the targeted machine by creating a malicious configuration.

It is possible to read the advisory at access.redhat.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2024-9050 since 09/20/2024. The exploitation is known to be easy. Attacking locally is a requirement. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 06/26/2026). The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1059 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 209554 (RHEL 8 : NetworkManager-libreswan (RHSA-2024:8355)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (209554) and EUVD (EUVD-2024-50427). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Red Hat

Name

• Enterprise Linux

Version

• 7
• 8
• 9

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.redhat.com/

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Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

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