Ivanti Connect Secure, Policy Secure, and ZTA Gateways: memory corruption flaw under attack

What is affected

Ivanti Connect Secure, Policy Secure, and ZTA Gateways 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 Connect Secure, Policy Secure, and ZTA Gateways contain a stack-based buffer overflow which can lead to unauthenticated remote code execution.

What an attacker can do

This is a memory corruption flaw. It lets an attacker corrupt the program's memory by feeding it specially crafted content: a web page, a file or a network message. The result ranges from a crash to the attacker running their own code.

How it is reached

Over the internet or network

Access the attacker needs

No account needed

Does the victim have to do something?

No, works without the victim doing anything

CISA records this vulnerability as known to be used in ransomware campaigns: attackers use it to get in, then encrypt files and demand payment.

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 Connect Secure, Policy Secure, and ZTA Gateways 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 as set forth in the CISA instructions linked below to include conducting hunt activities, taking remediation actions if applicable, and applying updates prior to returning a device to service.

Vendor advisories and fixes

• forums.ivanti.comforums.ivanti.com/s/article/Security-Advisory-Ivanti-Connect-Secure-Policy-Secure-ZTA-Gate

How urgent is it

CISA added this vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue on January 8, 2025, which means there is reliable evidence of attacks in the wild. US federal agencies must fix it by January 15, 2025, 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 100% probability that this flaw will be exploited somewhere in the next 30 days. That is higher than 100.0% of all scored vulnerabilities.

Its CVSS severity score is 9.0 out of 10 (critical), as recorded in the US National Vulnerability Database.

Technical description

A stack-based buffer overflow in Ivanti Connect Secure before version 22.7R2.5, Ivanti Policy Secure before version 22.7R1.2, and Ivanti Neurons for ZTA gateways before version 22.7R2.3 allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to achieve remote code execution.