CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2024-28986

Deserialization of Untrusted Data

Published: Aug 13, 2024 | Modified: Aug 16, 2024
CVSS 3.x
N/A
Source:
NVD
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

SolarWinds Web Help Desk was found to be susceptible to a Java Deserialization Remote Code Execution vulnerability that, if exploited, would allow an attacker to run commands on the host machine.

While it was reported as an unauthenticated vulnerability, SolarWinds has been unable to reproduce it without authentication after thorough testing.  

However, out of an abundance of caution, we recommend all Web Help Desk customers apply the patch, which is now available.

Weakness

The product deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently verifying that the resulting data will be valid.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Web_help_desk Solarwinds * 12.8.2 (including)
Web_help_desk Solarwinds 12.8.3 (including) 12.8.3 (including)

Extended Description

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.

Potential Mitigations

  • Make fields transient to protect them from deserialization.
  • An attempt to serialize and then deserialize a class containing transient fields will result in NULLs where the transient data should be. This is an excellent way to prevent time, environment-based, or sensitive variables from being carried over and used improperly.

References