In early 2022, Intel reported a significant security vulnerability found in some of their server products. Tagged as CVE-2022-25917, this issue affects the Intel(R) Server Board M50CYP Family running firmware versions *before R01.01.0005*. If you're running servers with this board, especially in critical environments, understanding this flaw is important to keep your systems safe.
What Is CVE-2022-25917?
In simple words, this vulnerability is an "uncaught exception" in the server board's firmware. If a local privileged user interacts with the system in a certain way, they can cause the firmware to crash. Since the code doesn’t properly handle a certain kind of error, it exits unexpectedly, leading to a Denial of Service (DoS). This means your server could become unresponsive or need a reboot.
How bad is it: Requires local privileges (not remote); attackers need to be logged in
- Impact: Your server can crash or hang, disrupting applications and potentially losing unsaved data
How Does This Vulnerability Work?
At its core, the firmware running on the affected Intel server boards isn't handling an edge-case error correctly. Imagine someone with admin privileges runs a management command (like a BIOS update or hardware query), but they pass in unexpected values, or trigger an error path. Instead of showing an error, the firmware throws an exception that no part of the code is ready to catch. The server gets stuck or shuts down unexpectedly.
Let’s make it clearer with a simplified pseudo-code example
void handle_request(user_input) {
try {
if (invalid(user_input)) {
throw Exception("Bad input!");
}
// Process the request normally
}
catch (Exception e) {
// Uh-oh! No error handler here
// In affected firmware, this exception bubbles up and crashes the system
exit(-1); // Crashes firmware
}
}
If someone with proper privileges passes in a weird request, the Exception is thrown, but because the firmware wasn’t built to handle every possible error, it ends up exiting, bringing down the board’s management software or the server itself.
## How to Exploit CVE-2022-25917 (For Demonstration/Education Only)
A simplified example of how an exploit might look (assuming direct hardware or shell access)
# This is a hypothetical example.
# The real exploit would depend on the BMC shell and available management commands.
# Send a malformed management command to the server's Baseboard Management Controller:
ipmitool raw x06 x01 bad_flag
# Or run a diagnostic tool with invalid parameters:
sudo /usr/bin/board_diag --trigger-error=1
If the firmware isn’t patched, the service handling this request will throw an uncaught exception and crash, causing the management interface, or the entire server, to become unresponsive. This can be especially nasty if used as part of a wider attack or just to knock a critical server offline.
How to Fix CVE-2022-25917
Intel released a firmware update (R01.01.0005) that fixes this bug. The update ensures that all exceptions are properly caught and handled, so a user error won’t bring your server down.
If you're running a version BEFORE R01.01.0005, download and install the latest update
Original References
- Intel Security Advisory INTEL-SA-00703
- NVD Entry for CVE-2022-25917
Final Thoughts
While CVE-2022-25917 isn’t a remote attack and requires a local privileged account, it’s a big problem for data centers where uptime is critical. With so much damage coming from a mistake in error-handling, it shows why even “minor” firmware bugs can have serious effects. Patch your servers, keep access tight, and stay secure!
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*This post is for educational purposes to help sysadmins and server operators understand the risks and urgency of timely firmware updates. Always keep your systems up-to-date and follow security best practices.*
Timeline
Published on: 11/11/2022 16:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 08/08/2023 14:21:00 UTC