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SolarWinds Orion API authentication bypass allows remote command execution

Vulnerability Note VU#843464

Original Release Date: 2020-12-26 | Last Revised: 2021-01-28

Overview

The SolarWinds Orion API is vulnerable to authentication bypass that could allow a remote attacker to execute API commands.

Description

The SolarWinds Orion Platform is a suite of infrastructure and system monitoring and management products. The SolarWinds Orion API is embedded into the Orion Core and is used to interface with all SolarWinds Orion Platform products. API authentication can be bypassed by including specific parameters in the Request.PathInfo portion of a URI request, which could allow an attacker to execute unauthenticated API commands. In particular, if an attacker appends a PathInfo parameter of WebResource.axd, ScriptResource.axd, i18n.ashx, or Skipi18n to a request to a SolarWinds Orion server, SolarWinds may set the SkipAuthorization flag, which may allow the API request to be processed without requiring authentication.

This vulnerability, also known as CVE-2020-10148, is the vulnerability that SolarWinds has indicated to have been used to install the malware known as SUPERNOVA.

We have created a python3 script to check for vulnerable SolarWinds Orion servers: swcheck.py

Impact

This vulnerability could allow a remote attacker to bypass authentication and execute API commands which may result in a compromise of the SolarWinds instance.

Solution

Apply an Update

Users should update to the relevant versions of the SolarWinds Orion Platform:

  • 2019.4 HF 6 (released December 14, 2020)
  • 2020.2.1 HF 2 (released December 15, 2020)
  • 2019.2 SUPERNOVA Patch (released December 23, 2020)
  • 2018.4 SUPERNOVA Patch (released December 23, 2020)
  • 2018.2 SUPERNOVA Patch (released December 23, 2020)

More information can be found in the SolarWinds Security Advisory.

Harden the IIS Server

Especially in cases when updates cannot be installed, we recommend that users implement these mitigations to harden the IIS server.

Acknowledgements

This document was written by Madison Oliver and Will Dormann.

Vendor Information

843464
 

SolarWinds Affected

Notified:  2020-12-10 Updated: 2021-01-11

CVE-2020-10148 Affected

Vendor Statement

We have not received a statement from the vendor.

References


Other Information

CVE IDs: CVE-2020-10148
Date Public: 2020-12-26
Date First Published: 2020-12-26
Date Last Updated: 2021-01-28 16:53 UTC
Document Revision: 12

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