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CVE-2022-23131: Zabbix Frontend Authentication Bypass Vulnerability

CVE-2022-23131 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 and affects Zabbix Frontend. 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. CISA added it to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-02-22, which means exploitation in the wild has been observed.

Vulnerability description

In the case of instances where the SAML SSO authentication is enabled (non-default), session data can be modified by a malicious actor, because a user login stored in the session was not verified. Malicious unauthenticated actor may exploit this issue to escalate privileges and gain admin access to Zabbix Frontend. To perform the attack, SAML authentication is required to be enabled and the actor has to know the username of Zabbix user (or use the guest account, which is disabled by default).

Severity breakdown

CVSS v3.1 9.8: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/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: Unchanged. Impact stays within the vulnerable component.
  • 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-290: Authentication Bypass by Spoofing

This attack-focused weakness is caused by incorrectly implemented authentication schemes that are subject to spoofing attacks.

Affected products

  • Zabbix: from 5.4.0 up to and including 5.4.8; 6.0.0 alpha1

References