Quantum Secular Labs / Blog / Advisories

CVE-2018-17160: Freebsd: Code execution

CVE-2018-17160 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.0 base score of 10.0 and affects Freebsd. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without authentication, without any user interaction. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available.

Vulnerability description

In FreeBSD before 11.2-STABLE(r341486) and 11.2-RELEASE-p6, insufficient bounds checking in one of the device models provided by bhyve can permit a guest operating system to overwrite memory in the bhyve host possibly permitting arbitrary code execution. A guest OS using a firmware image can cause the bhyve process to crash, or possibly execute arbitrary code on the host as root.

Severity breakdown

CVSS v3.0 10.0: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

  • Attack vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network, with no need for local or physical access.
  • Attack complexity: Low. No special conditions; the attack can be repeated reliably.
  • Privileges required: None. No account or prior access is needed.
  • User interaction: None. No action from any user is needed.
  • Scope: Changed. Impact reaches beyond the vulnerable component to other resources.
  • Confidentiality impact: High. Total loss of confidentiality; sensitive data can be fully disclosed.
  • Integrity impact: High. Total loss of integrity; data or system state can be fully modified.
  • Availability impact: High. Total loss of availability; the component can be shut down.

Underlying weakness

CWE-787: Out-of-bounds Write

The product writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.

Affected products

  • Freebsd: before 11.2; 11.2 p5

References