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Critical Patch Out for Critical Pulse Secure VPN 0

criticalVulnerability exploited in the wildimportance 60CVE-2021-22893

Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →

CVEVulnerabilityCVSSEPSSFlagsAffectedExposurePublished
CVE-2021-22893
Use-After-Free RCE in Ivanti Pulse Connect Secure License Services

Ivanti Pulse Connect Secure, a widely deployed SSL VPN appliance, contains a use-after-free vulnerability in its license services. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can trigger the flaw via the license services and gain arbitrary code execution on the appliance, which is a high-value target because it terminates VPN sessions for enterprise networks. Any organization running an affected Pulse Connect Secure release is potentially affected; the source data does not specify exact version ranges, so administrators should compare their release against Ivanti's advisory. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: the flaw is on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) with known ransomware use, and its 47.2% EPSS score (99th percentile) indicates a high likelihood of exploitation within 30 days.

Do: Apply the updates per Ivanti's instructions immediately, as CISA's required action specifies. Because exploited appliances have often retained persistent webshells/backdoors even after patching, also hunt for indicators of compromise (modified appliance files, unexpected processes or accounts) and follow Ivanti's remediation guidance rather than only installing the update. Until patched, restrict or closely monitor internet access to the appliance.

10.047% KEV ransomware
  • Ivanti Pulse Connect Secure
largetens of thousands of internet-exposed Pulse Connect Secure VPN appliances (order of magnitude ~10^4-10^5)
Full article338 words · extracted from thehackernews.com · click to collapse

Ravie LakshmananMay 04, 2021

Ivanti, the company behind Pulse Secure VPN appliances, has released a security patch to remediate a critical security vulnerability that was found being actively exploited in the wild by at least two different threat actors.

Tracked as CVE-2021-22893 (CVSS score 10), the flaw concerns "multiple use after free" issues in Pulse Connect Secure that could allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code and take control of the affected system. All Pulse Connect Secure versions prior to 9.1R11.4 are impacted.

The flaw came to light on April 20 after FireEye disclosed a series of intrusions targeting defense, government, and financial organizations in the U.S. and elsewhere by leveraging critical vulnerabilities in the remote access solution to bypass multi-factor authentication protections and breach enterprise networks.

The development promoted the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue an Emergency Directive urging federal agencies and civilian departments to mitigate any anomalous activity or active exploitation detected on their networks.

Following an investigation conducted in conjunction with FireEye Mandiant, Ivanti said the attacks were observed on a "very limited number" of customer systems. FireEye is tracking the activity under two separate clusters UNC2630 and UNC2717 citing differences in the malicious web shells that were dropped on the compromised devices.

"As sophisticated threat actors continue their attacks on U.S. businesses and government agencies, we will continue to work with our customers, the broader security industry, law enforcement and government agencies to mitigate these threats," the Utah-based software firm said.

"Companywide we are making significant investments to enhance our overall cybersecurity posture, including a more broad implementation of secure application development standards."

Pulse Secure customers are advised to move quickly to apply the update to ensure they are protected. The company has also released a Pulse Connect Secure Integrity Tool to check for signs of compromise and identify malicious activity on their systems.

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Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/critical-patch-out-for-month-old-pulse.html