CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2022-41948 — DHIS 2 is an open source information system for data capture, management, validation, analytics and visualization

High CVSS 7.2

DHIS 2 is an open source information system for data capture, management, validation, analytics and visualization. Affected versions are subject to a privilege escalation vulnerability. A DHIS2 user with authority to manage users can assign superuser privileges to themself by manually crafting an HTTP PUT request. Only users with the following DHIS2 user role authorities can exploit this vulnerability. Note that in many systems the only users with user admin privileges are also superusers. In these cases, the escalation vulnerability does not exist. The vulnerability is only exploitable by attackers who can authenticate as users with the user admin authority. As this is usually a small and relatively trusted set of users, exploit vectors will often be limited. DHIS2 administrators should upgrade to the following hotfix releases: 2.36.12.1, 2.37.8.1, 2.38.2.1, 2.39.0.1. The only known workaround to this issue is to avoid the assignment of the user management authority to any users until the patch has been applied.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.2 (3.1)
Published
2022-12-08
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-269

Affected products

  • dhis2 / dhis_2
  • dhis2 / dhis_2 / 2.39.0

Showing 2 representative product identities from 4 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

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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