ZeroHour
CyberScooppublished ()ingested @CyberScoopNews

China-linked attacker hit France’s critical infrastructure via trio of Ivanti zero

criticalExploit / PoC exploited in the wildimportance 60CVE-2024-8190CVE-2024-8963CVE-2024-9380

Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →

CVEVulnerabilityCVSSEPSSFlagsAffectedExposurePublished
CVE-2024-8190
OS Command Injection RCE in Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance 4.6

Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance versions 4.6 Patch 518 and before contain an OS command injection flaw (CWE-78) that allows a remote, authenticated attacker to achieve remote code execution. The attacker must already hold administrator-level privileges on the appliance, and exploitation is triggered by sending crafted input to the appliance over the network. Successful exploitation yields arbitrary command execution on the CSA, and related reporting indicates nation-state actors have been exploiting Ivanti CSA flaws for network infiltration, including attacks on French government and telecom targets. Only organizations still running CSA 4.6.x are affected, and that product line has reached end-of-life and will not receive further security updates. The vulnerability was added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2024-09-13 and carries a very high EPSS score (88.5%, 100th percentile), signaling confirmed and likely ongoing exploitation in the wild.

Do: Because CSA 4.6.x has reached end-of-life, remove CSA 4.6.x from service or migrate to the supported 5.0.x line, as future 4.6.x flaws are unlikely to receive fixes. Given confirmed nation-state exploitation, hunt for signs of compromise such as unexpected admin sessions, processes, or network tunnels, and restrict internet exposure of any remaining 4.6.x appliances in the interim.

7.289% KEV
  • Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance 4.6 through Patch 518 (versions 4.6 Patch 518 and before)
moderateroughly 1,000–2,000 internet-exposed CSA appliances (public internet scan counts)
CVE-2024-8963
Unauthenticated Path Traversal in Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance

CVE-2024-8963 is a path traversal vulnerability (CWE-22) in the Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance (CSA), a virtual appliance used to remotely manage Ivanti Endpoint Manager environments. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can send crafted requests containing directory traversal sequences to reach restricted functionality without any credentials. Successful exploitation grants access to restricted (including administrative) functions on the appliance, and public reporting indicates it has been chained with other CSA zero-day flaws by nation-state attackers to infiltrate networks. All CSA 4.6.x releases before Patch 519 are affected, and the 4.6.x product line has reached end-of-life, meaning future 4.6.x vulnerabilities will not receive fixes. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: CISA added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2024-09-19, and multiple outlets report Chinese-linked actors exploiting CSA zero-days against French government, telecom and other critical-infrastructure targets.

Do: Upgrade CSA 4.6.x to Patch 519 or later, or move to the supported 5.0.x line; because 4.6.x is end-of-life, CISA urges removing CSA 4.6.x from service or migrating to 5.0.x rather than relying on future 4.6.x patches. Until patched, restrict or remove internet exposure of CSA appliances and review logs for unauthenticated access to restricted functionality, since this flaw is being chained with other CSA vulnerabilities in targeted intrusions.

9.199% KEV
  • Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance (CSA) CSA 4.6.x before 4.6 Patch 519
moderate≈1,000–2,000 internet-exposed CSA appliances (order of magnitude; installed base larger if internal-only deployments are counted)
CVE-2024-9380
OS Command Injection RCE in Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance Admin Console

CVE-2024-9380 is an OS command injection flaw (CWE-77/CWE-78) in the admin web console of Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance (CSA), fixed in version 5.0.2. A remote attacker who is already authenticated with administrative privileges can inject arbitrary operating system commands through the console, which the appliance then executes. Successful exploitation yields remote code execution with high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CVSS 3.1: 7.2). All CSA releases before 5.0.2 are affected, and the widely deployed 4.6.x line has reached End-of-Life, so EOL users must remove it from service or move to 5.0.x or later. The flaw was added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2024-10-09, and contemporaneous reporting describes Chinese nation-state actors exploiting Ivanti CSA zero-days against French government and telecom targets, with a 63.2% EPSS probability of exploitation in the next 30 days (99th percentile).

Do: Upgrade Ivanti CSA to 5.0.2 or later; if you are running the End-of-Life 4.6.x line, either remove it from service or migrate to the supported 5.0.x line, per CISA's KEV required action. Restrict exposure of the admin web console (do not leave it directly internet-facing) and verify whether your appliance was targeted. Given reported nation-state exploitation of CSA zero-days, review appliance logs and admin credentials for signs of compromise.

7.263% KEV
  • Ivanti Endpoint Manager Cloud Services Appliance (CSA) all versions before 5.0.2, including the End-of-Life 4.6.x line
moderate≈ a few thousand internet-exposed CSA appliances; total installed base likely in the low tens of thousands
Full article749 words · extracted from cyberscoop.com · click to collapse
Skip to main content

Get our latest cybersecurity news first on Google.

Click here!

French authorities said government agencies and businesses spanning telecom, media, finance and transportation were impacted by the widely exploited Ivanti vulnerabilities.

Listen to this article

0:00

Learn more.

A logo sign outside of the headquarters of Ivanti in South Jordan, Utah. (Kristoffer Tripplaar / Alamy Stock Photo)

Multiple critical infrastructure sectors were hit last year during an attack spree in France via a trio of zero-day vulnerabilities affecting Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance devices, the country’s cybersecurity agency said in a report released Tuesday.

Government agencies and organizations in the telecommunications, media, finance and transportation industries were impacted by widespread zero-day exploits of CVE-2024-8190, CVE-2024-8963 and CVE-2024-9380 from early September to late November 2024, according to the French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems.

French authorities attribute the attacks to UNC5174, a former member of Chinese hacktivist collectives likely working as a contractor for China’s Ministry of State Security, according to Mandiant. The attacker, believed to use the persona “Uteus,” previously exploited edge device vulnerabilities in ConnectWise ScreenConnect, F5 BIG-IP, Atlassian Confluence, the Linus kernel and Zyxel firewalls.

Authorities in France concluded UNC5174 used a unique intrusion set it dubbed “Houken,” which used zero-day vulnerabilities, a sophisticated rootkit, various open-source tools, commercial VPNs and dedicated servers. Officials said Houken and UNC5174 are likely operated by the same threat actor, an initial access broker that also steals credentials and deploys mechanisms to achieve persistent access to victim networks.

“Though already documented for its opportunistic exploitation of vulnerabilities on edge devices, the use of zero-days by a threat actor linked to UNC5174 is new,” France’s cybersecurity agency said in the report. “The operators behind the UNC5174 and Houken intrusion sets are likely primarily looking for valuable initial accesses to sell to a state-linked actor seeking insightful intelligence.”

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an advisory in January warning that threat actors chained the three Ivanti zero-days to gain initial access, conduct remote code execution, obtain credentials and implant webshells on victim networks. 

Sysdig researchers in April said they observed the China state-sponsored hacking group, UNC5174, using open-source offensive security tools, such as VShell and WebSockets, to blend in with more common cybercriminal activity. 

Multiple attackers, including China-linked espionage groups, have repeatedly exploited a long run of vulnerabilities in Ivanti products. Ivanti is a repeat offender, shipping software with a high number of vulnerabilities — more than any other vendor in this space since the start of last year — across at least 10 different product lines since 2021.

CISA’s known exploited vulnerabilities catalog contains 30 Ivanti defects in the past four years, and attackers have exploited seven vulnerabilities in Ivanti products so far this year, according to cyber authorities.

“We support information sharing to aid defenders. This report covers threat actor activity from last fall that affected an end-of-life version of Cloud Services Appliance. Customers on fully patched or upgraded versions were not affected,” a spokesperson for Ivanti said in a statement.

“Ivanti released a patch in 2024 and strongly urged all customers to upgrade to CSA version 5.0, which was not affected by this vulnerability. The security and protection of our customers remain our top priority, and we are committed to supporting them.”

Latest Podcasts

Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://cyberscoop.com/france-government-ivanti-zero-days-china/