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CVE-2025-55109: Authentication Bypass Vulnerability in Control-M/Agent

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Overview

This blog post examines CVE-2025-55109, a critical authentication bypass vulnerability in the out-of-support Control-M/Agent versions 9.0.18 to 9.0.20 and potentially earlier unsupported versions. This vulnerability presents a significant risk to organizations that use this software, as it allows an attacker with access to a signed third-party or demo certificate for client authentication to bypass the need for a certificate signed by the certificate authority of the organization during authentication on the Control-M/Agent. This can potentially lead to unauthorized access, system compromise, or data leakage.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2025-55109
Severity: Critical (CVSS: 9.0)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Impact: Potential system compromise or data leakage

Affected Products

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Product | Affected Versions

Control-M/Agent | 9.0.18 to 9.0.20

How the Exploit Works

The vulnerability lies in the way the Control-M/Agent handles certificates for client authentication. The software contains hardcoded certificates which are only trusted as fallback if an empty kdb keystore is used. If a PKCS#12 keystore is used, these certificates are never trusted. However, all of these certificates are now expired.
Furthermore, the Control-M/Agent default kdb and PKCS#12 keystores contain trusted third-party certificates (external recognized CAs and default self-signed demo certificates) which are trusted for client authentication. An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by presenting a signed third-party or demo certificate to bypass the need for a certificate signed by the certificate authority of the organization during authentication on the Control-M/Agent.

Conceptual Example Code

The following is a conceptual example of how the vulnerability might be exploited. It is a simplified version of an authentication request where a malicious actor uses a signed third-party or demo certificate instead of a certificate signed by the organization’s certificate authority.

POST /ControlM/AgentAuthentication HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/json
{
"ClientCertificate": "SignedThirdPartyOrDemoCertificate",
"AuthenticationPayload": "..."
}

In this example, `SignedThirdPartyOrDemoCertificate` represents the signed third-party or demo certificate used by the attacker to bypass authentication, and `AuthenticationPayload` is a placeholder for the actual authentication payload.

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Disclaimer:

The information and code presented in this article are provided for educational and defensive cybersecurity purposes only. Any conceptual or pseudocode examples are simplified representations intended to raise awareness and promote secure development and system configuration practices.

Do not use this information to attempt unauthorized access or exploit vulnerabilities on systems that you do not own or have explicit permission to test.

Ameeba and its authors do not endorse or condone malicious behavior and are not responsible for misuse of the content. Always follow ethical hacking guidelines, responsible disclosure practices, and local laws.

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