Nagios Monitoring Tool Vulnerabilities Let Attackers Perform SQL Injection

Nagios XI is a prominent and frequently used commercial monitoring system for IT infrastructure and network monitoring. 

Vulnerability Research Engineer Astrid Tedenbrant found four distinct vulnerabilities in Nagios XI (version 5.11.1 and below) while conducting routine research.

By making use of three of these flaws classified as (CVE-2023-40931, CVE-2023-40933, and CVE-2023-40934), users with various levels of access rights can get access to the database field via SQL injection.

Additionally, the vulnerability (CVE-2023-40932) permits Cross-Site Scripting through the Custom Logo component, rendering on all pages, including the login page.

Details of the Vulnerabilities

SQL Injection in Banner acknowledging endpoint (CVE-2023-40931)

“Announcement Banners” are a feature of Nagios XI that users may choose to recognize. This feature’s endpoint is susceptible to a SQL Injection attack.

When a user acknowledges a banner, a POST request is made to ‘/nagiosxi/admin/banner_message-ajaxhelper.php’ with the POST data ‘action=acknowledge banner message&id=3’.

“The ID parameter is assumed to be trusted but comes directly from the client without sanitization”, the researcher explains.

“This leads to a SQL Injection where an authenticated user with low or no privileges can retrieve sensitive data, such as from the `xi_session` and `xi_users` table containing data such as emails, usernames, hashed passwords, API tokens, and backend tickets”.

SQL Injection in Host/Service Escalation in CCM (CVE-2023-40934)

An authorized user with access to control host escalations can run any database query using Nagios XI’s Core Configuration Manager.

The same database access is possible through this vulnerability as through previous SQL Injection vulnerabilities, although it necessitates more privileges than CVE-2023-40931.

SQL Injection in Announcement Banner Settings (CVE-2023-40933)

In this case, while performing the `update_banner_message_settings` action on the affected endpoint, the `id` parameter is assumed to be trusted and is concatenated into a database query with no sanitization. This allows an attacker to modify the query, the researcher said.

Compared to CVE-2023-40931, successful exploitation of this vulnerability needs more privileges but provides the same database access as the other two SQL Injection Vulnerabilities.

Cross-Site Scripting in Custom Logo Component (CVE-2023-40932)

Reports say Nagios XI may be modified to include a unique corporate logo, which will be visible across the entire product. Included in this are the login page, various administration pages, and the landing page.

A cross-site scripting flaw in this functionality allows an attacker to inject arbitrary JavaScript, which any user’s browser will be able to execute.

“This can be used to read and modify page data, as well as perform actions on behalf of the affected user. Plain-text credentials can be stolen from users’ browsers as they enter them.,” reports said.

Fix Available

All of these vulnerabilities have been fixed, and users are encouraged to update to 5.11.2 or later.

The commercial version of the open-source Nagios Core monitoring platform, Nagios XI, offers more functionality that makes managing complicated IT settings easier.

Because of the access that Nagios XI requires, it is frequently used in highly privileged instances, making it an attractive target for attackers.

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