U.S. CISA adds Versa Director bug to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

CVE-2024-39717 is an unrestricted file upload flaw (CWE-434) in the interface customization function of Versa Networks' Versa Director: the 'Change Favicon' option in the GUI accepts an uploaded file that merely ends in a .png extension, so a malicious file can masquerade as an image. Exploitation requires network access to the Director GUI and valid credentials for a Provider-Data-Center-Admin or Provider-Data-Center-System-Admin account (tenant-level users cannot reach the feature), which is why the 7.2 CVSS score includes 'high privileges required.' By planting a dangerous file disguised as a .png, an attacker gains a code-execution path on the Director server consistent with the flaw's high confidentiality, integrity and availability impact ratings. Any organization running Versa Director — particularly service providers and internet providers whose management interface is reachable from the internet — is potentially affected. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: China-linked actor Volt Typhoon used the flaw as a zero-day against U.S. and global IT targets, CISA added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2024-08-23, and federal agencies were urged to patch by September 2024.

Do: Apply Versa Networks' fix/mitigation instructions — CISA's required action is to apply vendor mitigations or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable — and meet the September 2024 federal remediation deadline if applicable. Restrict access to the Versa Director GUI to trusted management networks rather than exposing it to the internet, and audit and rotate credentials for Provider-Data-Center-Admin and Provider-Data-Center-System-Admin accounts, since the observed Volt Typhoon activity relied on valid high-privilege logins. Check Director systems for unexpected files uploaded through the Change Favicon feature that may be disguised as .png images.