A critical security flaw impacting Progress Software WhatsUp Gold is seeing active exploitation attempts, making it essential that users move quickly to apply the latest.
The vulnerability in question is CVE-2024-4885 (CVSS score: 9.8), an unauthenticated remote code execution bug impacting versions of the network monitoring application released before 2023.1.3.
"The WhatsUp.ExportUtilities.Export.GetFileWithoutZip allows execution of commands with iisapppool\\nmconsole privileges," the company said in an advisory released in late June 2024.
According to security researcher Sina Kheirkhah of the Summoning Team, the flaw resides in the implementation of the GetFileWithoutZip method, which fails to perform adequate validation of user-supplied paths prior to its use.
An attacker could take advantage of this behavior to execute code in the context of the service account. A proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit has since been released by Kheirkhah.
The Shadowserver Foundation said it has observed exploitation attempts against the flaw since August 1, 2024. "Starting Aug 1st, we see /NmAPI/RecurringReport CVE-2024-4885 exploitation callback attempts (so far 6 src IPs)," it said in a post on X.
WhatsUp Gold version 2023.1.3 addresses two more critical flaws CVE-2024-4883 and CVE-2024-4884 (CVSS scores: 9.8), both of which also enable unauthenticated remote code execution through NmApi.exe and Apm.UI.Areas.APM.Controllers.CommunityController, respectively.
Also addressed by Progress Software is a high-severity privilege escalation issue (CVE-2024-5009, CVSS score: 8.4) that allows local attackers to elevate their privileges on affected installations by taking advantage of the SetAdminPassword method.
With flaws in Progress Software regularly being abused by threat actors for malicious purposes, it's essential that admins apply the latest security updates and allow traffic only from trusted IP addresses to mitigate potential threats.
Update
Attack surface management company Censys said it has observed 1,207 WhatsUp Gold instances that are exposed online as of August 28, 2024, making them susceptible to a complete takeover.
