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Patch your Zoho ManageEngine instance immediately! PoC Exploit for CVE-2022

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 article476 words · extracted from securityaffairs.com · click to collapse

A PoC exploit code for the unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability CVE-2022-47966 in Zoho ManageEngine will be released soon.

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.

Reproducing the recent #ManageEngine CVE-2022-47966 pre-auth RCE, which affects nearly all of their products, has definitely been eye-opening about some recent SAML research that flew under our radar. POC and blog to come.

Credit to the original researcher @_l0gg, nice find! pic.twitter.com/qpkNZYH3c6

— Horizon3 Attack Team (@Horizon3Attack) January 12, 2023

Users of Zoho ManageEngine are urged to address their installs immediately, before the release of (PoC) exploit code that could be exploited by threat actors in the wild.

“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.

Using Shodan, Horizon3 researchers found more than a thousand instances of ManageEngine products exposed to the internet with SAML currently enabled. Experts pointed out that organizations that use SAML in the first place are often large enterprises that are higher value targets for threat actors. 

“ManageEngine released patches for all affected products by the end of October 2022. We expect some ManageEngine clients to have already patched, but given how slow enterprise patch cycles can be, we expect that there are many who have not yet patched.” concludes the post. “We encourage all ManageEngine users to heed the ManageEngine advisory and patch immediately.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Zoho ManageEngine)

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