CVE-2023-46805: Authentication Bypass Vulnerability in Ivanti ICS and Ivanti Policy Secure

Overview

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system has identified a critical vulnerability in Ivanti’s ICS and Policy Secure products, labeled as CVE-2023-46805. This vulnerability allows a remote attacker to bypass authentication mechanisms, potentially gaining unauthorized access to restricted resources. This poses serious risks to all organizations using the affected Ivanti’s solutions due to the potential for system compromise or data leakage. Given the severity score of 8.2, it is imperative that affected parties take immediate action to mitigate this vulnerability.

Vulnerability Summary

CVE ID: CVE-2023-46805
Severity: High (CVSS: 8.2)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Impact: Potential system compromise or data leakage

Affected Products

Product | Affected Versions

Ivanti ICS | 9.x, 22.x
Ivanti Policy Secure | All versions

How the Exploit Works

The authentication bypass vulnerability in Ivanti ICS and Ivanti Policy Secure software occurs in the web component. This flaw allows remote attackers to access restricted resources by bypassing control checks. Essentially, the software does not perform adequate checks to ensure that a user is properly authenticated before granting access to secured resources. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending specially crafted network requests to the affected system, tricking it into granting access without proper authentication.

Conceptual Example Code

Here’s a conceptual example of how an attacker might exploit this vulnerability using a HTTP request:

GET /restricted/resource HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
X-Forwarded-For: attacker_ip
{ "user_session": "fake_session_id" }

In this example, the attacker sends a GET request to a restricted resource, including a fake user session ID in the request. The vulnerable system fails to properly validate this session ID and grants access to the restricted resource.

Mitigation

To mitigate this vulnerability, Ivanti has released patches for the affected versions of ICS and Policy Secure. It is highly recommended to apply these patches immediately. In the interim, using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can provide temporary mitigation by identifying and blocking suspicious requests. However, this is a temporary solution and does not replace the need for the application of the vendor’s patch. Be sure to consistently monitor your systems for any unusual activity and maintain an up-to-date inventory of all devices and applications to ensure no vulnerable versions remain in your environment.