A security audit identified a privilege escalation vulnerability in Operations Agent(<=OA 12.29) on Windows. Under specific conditions Operations Agent may run executables from specific writeable locations.Thanks to Manuel Rickli & Philippe Leiser of Oneconsult AG for reporting this vulnerability
Weakness
The product does not handle or incorrectly handles when it has insufficient privileges to access resources or functionality as specified by their permissions. This may cause it to follow unexpected code paths that may leave the product in an invalid state.
Affected Software
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operations_agent | Microfocus | 12.22 (including) | 12.29 (including) |
Potential Mitigations
- Compartmentalize the system to have “safe” areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area.
- Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.