CVE-2024-53298: Critical Unauthorized Filesystem Access Vulnerability in Dell PowerScale OneFS

Overview

An alarming cybersecurity vulnerability, identified as CVE-2024-53298, has been detected in Dell’s PowerScale OneFS versions 9.5.0.0 through 9.10.0.1. This vulnerability involves missing authorization in the NFS export, which is a critical component of a system’s file sharing capabilities. By exploiting this vulnerability, an unauthenticated attacker with remote access could gain unauthorized access to the filesystem. The potential consequences of such unauthorized access are severe, including reading, modifying, and deleting arbitrary files. This issue is considered critical as it can lead to full system compromise and data leakage.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2024-53298
Severity: Critical (CVSS Score: 9.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Impact: Unauthorized filesystem access, potential system compromise or data leakage

Affected Products

Product | Affected Versions

Dell PowerScale OneFS | 9.5.0.0 – 9.10.0.1

How the Exploit Works

This critical vulnerability stems from missing authorization checks in the Network File System (NFS) export of the affected versions of Dell PowerScale OneFS. An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by sending specially crafted requests to the NFS export. Since the system does not properly validate these requests, an attacker can gain unauthorized access to the filesystem. This could potentially allow the attacker to read, modify, or delete arbitrary files, leading to data leakage or system compromise.

Conceptual Example Code

Below is a conceptual example of how an attacker might exploit this vulnerability:

# Attacker mounts the NFS export on their system
mount -t nfs target.example.com:/path/to/vulnerable/export /mnt/target
# Attacker now has unauthorized access to the filesystem and can read, modify, or delete files
cat /mnt/target/sensitive_file.txt
echo "malicious_content" > /mnt/target/sensitive_file.txt
rm /mnt/target/important_file.txt

This conceptual example is meant to illustrate the potential severity of the vulnerability and does not represent an actual exploit.

Mitigation Guidance

Dell recommends customers to upgrade their PowerScale OneFS to a version that addresses this vulnerability at the earliest opportunity. As a temporary mitigation, users can also employ Web Application Firewalls (WAF) or Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) to monitor and block potential exploit attempts. However, these are only temporary solutions and may not fully prevent exploitation. It is therefore crucial to apply the vendor patch as soon as it is available.