Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM): file access flaw under attack

What is affected

Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM) is mostly run by companies, schools and public bodies, not on home computers. You are unlikely to have it yourself, but organisations that hold your data may. Breaches that start with flaws like this one are how personal data ends up leaked.

Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM) contains a path traversal vulnerability that enables an authenticated administrator to perform malicious file writes to the EPMM server. This vulnerability can be used in conjunction with CVE-2023-35078 to bypass authentication and ACLs restrictions (if applicable).

What an attacker can do

This is a file access flaw. It lets an attacker read or write files they should never reach, such as configuration files that hold passwords, or upload a malicious file that the system then runs.

How it is reached

Over the internet or network

Access the attacker needs

An administrator account

Does the victim have to do something?

No, works without the victim doing anything

What to do

1. At home: nothing to install. Keep your own devices updated and use a different password for every service, so that a breach at one organisation does not open your other accounts.
2. If you administer Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM) at work: apply the vendor's fix or mitigation now and review logs for signs of compromise, because the flaw was being exploited before it was listed.
3. If the product is past its support date and no fix exists, take it off the internet or retire it.

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Vendor advisories and fixes

• forums.ivanti.comforums.ivanti.com/s/article/CVE-2023-35081-Arbitrary-File-Write?language=en_US

How urgent is it

CISA added this vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue on July 31, 2023, which means there is reliable evidence of attacks in the wild. US federal agencies must fix it by August 21, 2023, a deadline that has already passed. That deadline does not bind anyone else, but it shows how seriously the agency rates it.

The EPSS model estimates a 64% probability that this flaw will be exploited somewhere in the next 30 days. That is higher than 99.2% of all scored vulnerabilities.

Its CVSS severity score is 7.2 out of 10 (high), as recorded in the US National Vulnerability Database.

Technical description

A path traversal vulnerability in Ivanti EPMM versions (11.10.x < 11.10.0.3, 11.9.x < 11.9.1.2 and 11.8.x < 11.8.1.2) allows an authenticated administrator to write arbitrary files onto the appliance.