CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2018-15331 — F5 Big-Ip Application Acceleration Manager security vulnerability

High CVSS 7.8

On BIG-IP AAM 13.0.0 or 12.1.0-12.1.3.7, the dcdb_convert utility used by BIG-IP AAM fails to drop group permissions when executing helper scripts, which could be used to leverage attacks against the BIG-IP system.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.8 (3.0)
Published
2018-12-20
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-269

Affected products

  • f5 / big-ip_application_acceleration_manager
  • f5 / big-ip_application_acceleration_manager / 13.0.0

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

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Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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