This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of SolarWinds Patch Manager 2020.2.1. An attacker must first obtain the ability to execute low-privileged code on the target system in order to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the DataGridService WCF service. The issue results from the lack of proper validation of user-supplied data, which can result in deserialization of untrusted data. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of Administrator. Was ZDI-CAN-12009.
The product deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently verifying that the resulting data will be valid.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patch_manager | Solarwinds | 2020.2.1 (including) | 2020.2.1 (including) |
It is often convenient to serialize objects for communication or to save them for later use. However, deserialized data or code can often be modified without using the provided accessor functions if it does not use cryptography to protect itself. Furthermore, any cryptography would still be client-side security – which is a dangerous security assumption. Data that is untrusted can not be trusted to be well-formed. When developers place no restrictions on “gadget chains,” or series of instances and method invocations that can self-execute during the deserialization process (i.e., before the object is returned to the caller), it is sometimes possible for attackers to leverage them to perform unauthorized actions, like generating a shell.