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Experts released PoC exploit for Zoho ManageEngine RCE flaw

criticalExploit / PoCimportance 60CVE-2022-47966

Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →

CVEVulnerabilityCVSSEPSSFlagsAffectedExposurePublished
CVE-2022-47966
Unauthenticated SAML RCE in Zoho ManageEngine On-Premise Products

CVE-2022-47966 is a critical (CVSS 9.8), unauthenticated remote code execution flaw in roughly two dozen Zoho ManageEngine on-premise products caused by their bundled Apache Santuario xmlsec (XML Security for Java) 1.4.1 library, in which the XSLT features leave security protections to the application and ManageEngine did not provide them. An attacker triggers the flaw by sending a crafted SAML response containing a malicious XSLT transform to the SAML single sign-on (SSO) endpoint; exploitation is only possible if SAML SSO has ever been configured for the product (for some products, SAML SSO must be currently active). Successful exploitation yields arbitrary code execution in the context of the affected ManageEngine application, typically full compromise of the server and a foothold into the wider enterprise network. Any organization running an affected product version with SAML SSO enabled is affected, with internet-exposed ITSM/identity-management servers the most likely targets. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: the flaw is in CISA KEV with known ransomware use, Rapid7 reported broad attacker interest, North Korea's Lazarus Group used it to deploy QuiteRAT, and Iranian government-backed actors have targeted U.S. energy and transit-sector organizations.

Do: Apply vendor updates immediately, upgrading each installed product to at least the fixed version listed (e.g., ServiceDesk Plus 14004+, ADSelfService Plus 6211+, Endpoint Central/Endpoint Central MSP 10.1.2228.11+, Password Manager Pro 12124+, ServiceDesk Plus MSP 13001+, ADAudit Plus 7081+, ADManager Plus 7162+, AD360 4310+); this is a CISA KEV required action. As an interim mitigation, disable or restrict SAML SSO (or limit access to the product's SSO endpoints), since SAML SSO must have been configured for exploitation. Prioritize patching internet-exposed instances and review those servers for signs of compromise, given documented use by Lazarus Group, ransomware operators, and Iranian nation-state actors.

9.8100% KEV ransomware PoC ×6
  • zohocorp ManageEngine Access Manager Plus before 4308
  • zohocorp ManageEngine Active Directory 360 (AD360) before 4310
  • zohocorp ManageEngine ADAudit Plus before 7081
  • +9 more
largetens of thousands of installations plausibly affected (thousands of instances internet-exposed), out of ManageEngine's very large on-prem install base
Full article530 words · extracted from securityaffairs.com · click to collapse

Researchers released Proof-of-concept exploit code for remote code execution flaw CVE-2022-47966 impacting multiple Zoho ManageEngine products.

The CVE-2022-47966 flaw is an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability that impacts multiple Zoho products with SAML SSO enabled in the ManageEngine setup. The issue also impacts products that had the feature enabled in the past.

The root cause of the problem is that ManageEngine products use an outdated third-party dependency, Apache Santuario.

“This vulnerability allows an unauthenticated adversary to execute arbitrary code when the above SAML SSO criteria is met.” reads the advisory.

Researchers from Horizon3 Attack Team announced last week the development of a PoC exploit code that they plan to release soon along with technical details of the flaw.

“We have successfully reproduced this exploit and would like to provide additional insight into the vulnerability so users can begin to determine if they have been compromised.” reads a post published by the experts. “In this post we discuss logs entries present in:

  • ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus 14003
  • ManageEngine Endpoint Central 10.1.2228.10″

The researchers also provided Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) that can be used to determine vulnerable products. An attacker can exploit this vulnerability using a crafted SAML request with an invalid signature.

“The vulnerability is easy to exploit and a good candidate for attackers to “spray and pray” across the Internet. This vulnerability allows for remote code execution as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM, essentially giving an attacker complete control over the system.” continues the post.

The experts explained that threat actors with elevated privileges could trigger the flaw to steal credentials and use them to conduct lateral movement.

Horizon3 researchers have now released a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for the CVE-2022-47966 along with technical analysis. The experts developed the PoC exploit by examining the differences between ServiceDesk Plus version 14003 and version 14004. 

“The vulnerability allows an attacker to gain remote code execution by issuing a HTTP POST request containing a malicious SAML response. This vulnerability is a result of  using an outdated version of Apache Santuario for XML signature validation.” reads the analysis. “One of the critical pieces is understanding that the information flow uses the client’s browser to relay all information between the Service Provider (SP) and the Identity Provider (IDP). In this attack, we send a request containing malicious SAML XML directly to the service provider’s Assertion Consumer (ACS) URL.”

The researchers tested their PoC exploit against Endpoint Central, however, they believe it can work on many of the ManageEngine products that share some of their codebase with ServiceDesk Plus or EndpointCentral.

“In summary, when Apache Santuario is <= v1.4.1, the vulnerability is trivially exploitable and made possible via several conditions:

  • Reference validation is performed before signature validation, allowing for the execution of malicious XSLT transforms.
  • Execution of XSLT transforms allows an attacker to execute arbitrary Java code.” concludes the report.

The good news is that at the time of the report, researchers are not aware of attacks exploiting this vulnerability, however, researchers warn that threat actors can start attempting to exploit it soon.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Zoho ManageEngine)

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