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Writer's pictureJohn Jordan

Microsoft Unveils Critical OpenVPN Vulnerabilities: Potential for Remote Code Execution and Privilege Escalation

Microsoft has disclosed four medium-severity security flaws in the open-source OpenVPN software, which could be exploited to achieve remote code execution (RCE) and local privilege escalation (LPE). These vulnerabilities affect all versions of OpenVPN prior to 2.6.10 and 2.5.10, posing significant risks to users.

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Key Takeaways

  • Four security flaws in OpenVPN could lead to RCE and LPE.

  • Vulnerabilities affect all versions of OpenVPN before 2.6.10 and 2.5.10.

  • Exploits require user authentication and advanced knowledge of OpenVPN.

Details of the Vulnerabilities

Microsoft's Threat Intelligence Community has identified the following vulnerabilities:

  • CVE-2024-27459: A stack overflow vulnerability leading to Denial-of-Service (DoS) and LPE in Windows.

  • CVE-2024-24974: Unauthorized access to the named pipe in Windows, allowing remote interaction and operations.

  • CVE-2024-27903: A vulnerability in the plugin mechanism leading to RCE in Windows, and LPE and data manipulation in Android, iOS, macOS, and BSD.

  • CVE-2024-1305: A memory overflow vulnerability leading to DoS in Windows.

Exploitation Methods

These vulnerabilities can be exploited once an attacker gains access to a user's OpenVPN credentials. Credentials can be obtained through various methods, including purchasing stolen credentials on the dark web, using stealer malware, or sniffing network traffic to capture NTLMv2 hashes and then using cracking tools like HashCat or John the Ripper to decode them.

Potential Impact

An attacker could chain different combinations of these vulnerabilities to achieve RCE and LPE. For example:

  • CVE-2024-24974 and CVE-2024-27903

  • CVE-2024-27459 and CVE-2024-27903

Advanced Attack Techniques

Attackers could leverage at least three of the four discovered vulnerabilities to create powerful attack chains. Methods like Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) could be used after achieving LPE. This could allow attackers to disable Protect Process Light (PPL) for critical processes such as Microsoft Defender or bypass and meddle with other critical system processes.

These vulnerabilities highlight the importance of keeping software up-to-date and maintaining robust security practices. Users of OpenVPN are strongly advised to update to the latest versions to mitigate these risks.

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