CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-20110 — Zohocorp Manageengine Assetexplorer security vulnerability

Critical CVSS 9.8

Due to Manage Engine Asset Explorer Agent 1.0.34 not validating HTTPS certificates, an attacker on the network can statically configure their IP address to match the Asset Explorer's Server IP address. This will allow an attacker to send a NEWSCAN request to a listening agent on the network as well as receive the agent's HTTP request verifying its authtoken. In httphandler.cpp, the agent reaching out over HTTP is vulnerable to an Integer Overflow, which can be turned into a Heap Overflow allowing for remote code execution as NT AUTHORITY/SYSTEM on the agent machine. The Integer Overflow occurs when receiving POST response from the Manage Engine server, and the agent calling "HttpQueryInfoW" in order to get the "Content-Length" size from the incoming POST request. This size is taken, but multiplied to a larger amount. If an attacker specifies a Content-Length size of 1073741823 or larger, this integer arithmetic will wrap the value back around to smaller integer, then calls "calloc" with this size to allocate memory. The following API "InternetReadFile" will copy the POST data into this buffer, which will be too small for the contents, and cause heap overflow.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.8 (3.1)
Published
2021-07-19
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-190

Affected products

  • zohocorp / manageengine_assetexplorer / 1.0.34

Matched remediation archetype

Command, code, expression, and template injection

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Trace untrusted values to process execution, interpreters, evaluators, template engines, dynamic imports, and administrative scripting features.
  • Determine whether the affected path is reachable across each trust boundary and which service account or host privilege it inherits.
  • Review configuration for optional execution features, unsafe compatibility modes, and shell invocation.

Remediate safely

  • Replace string-built commands or evaluated code with fixed operations and structured argument APIs that do not invoke a shell.
  • Use strict allowlists for operation identifiers and reject unexpected input before it reaches any interpreter.
  • Update the affected component and add inert regression tests covering metacharacters, encoding variants, and alternate request paths.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.