⚠️ want a highly impactful, actively exploited border gateway zero days situation to wake you up?

Ivanti Pulse Secure aka Ivanti Connect Secure and Ivanti Policy Secure Gateway customers - prepare to deploy mitigations and await follow on patches.

In the wild exploitation, probable nation state - includes authentication (including MFA) bypass and code execution.

Looks like Ivanti have done a really good job identifying.

I call it ConnectAround. #threatintel #connectaround

It's really widely used in enterprise space and government, so I would suggest it's one to get skates on and may need a bunch of compromise assessments at larger orgs.
Will (@thegpfury)

@[email protected] They just sent out a blast with a mitigation.

Excelsior!
Ivanti Community

A Shodan search for #ConnectAround

html:"welcome.cgi?p=logo"

https://beta.shodan.io/search?query=html%3A%22welcome.cgi%3Fp%3Dlogo%22

Combine it with ssl:yourorg or org:yourorg to find your devices

Security Update for Ivanti Connect Secure and Ivanti Policy Secure Gateways

We have discovered new vulnerabilities in Ivanti Connect Secure (formerly Pulse Secure) and Ivanti Policy Secure gateways. We are reporting these vulnerabilities as CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887.

This is definitely being actively used in the wild - Ivanti have opted to hide that part behind a paywall. Paywall link: https://forums.ivanti.com/s/article/KB-CVE-2023-46805-Authentication-Bypass-CVE-2024-21887-Command-Injection-for-Ivanti-Connect-Secure-and-Ivanti-Policy-Secure-Gateways
Ivanti Community

Ivanti disclosure flow chart, apparently.

More info on #ConnectAround from @volexity

https://www.volexity.com/blog/2024/01/10/active-exploitation-of-two-zero-day-vulnerabilities-in-ivanti-connect-secure-vpn/

- Exploitation dates to at least late 2023
- Chinese nation state actor

Loads of info in the blog.

Another #ConnectAround Shodan search: product:"Pulse Secure"

Obvious point - there will likely be more #ConnectAround victims.

Most orgs don't have the capability to detect suspected zero day exploitation of a VPN and call in Mandiant IR... they probably have Bob The Builder as an MSP and a security budget of 4 twigs.

Ivanti Community

CISA have added the two CVEs ( CVE-2024-21887 and CVE-2023-46805 ) to KEV, and are requiring mitigation application on Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agency networks by 31st January 2024. https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog #ConnectAround #threatintel
Exploitation of vulnerabilities affecting Ivanti Connect Secure and Ivanti Policy Secure

Organisations are encouraged to take immediate action to mitigate vulnerabilities affecting Ivanti Connect Secure (ICS) and Ivanti Policy Secure (IPS) gateways (CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887), and follow the latest vendor advice.

Cutting Edge: Suspected APT Targets Ivanti Connect Secure VPN in New Zero-Day Exploitation | Mandiant

Mandiant
I have written a #ConnectAround scanner and I’m scanning the internet’s to see exposure level, if you spot me in your logs. #threatintel

The finders of #ConnectAround have updated their blog to say 1700 orgs have been compromised, not less than 10 https://www.volexity.com/blog/2024/01/15/ivanti-connect-secure-vpn-exploitation-goes-global/

If you use Pulse Secure, you probably want to find an IR firm.

#threatintel

Ivanti Connect Secure VPN Exploitation Goes Global

On January 10, 2024, Volexity publicly shared details of targeted attacks by UTA00178 exploiting two zero-day vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-21887 and CVE-2023-46805) in Ivanti Connect Secure (ICS) VPN appliances. On the same day, Ivanti published a mitigation that could be applied to ICS VPN appliances to prevent exploitation of these vulnerabilities. Since publication of these details, Volexity has continued to monitor its existing customers for exploitation. Volexity has also been contacted by multiple organizations that saw signs of compromise by way of mismatched file detections. Volexity has been actively working multiple new cases of organizations with compromised ICS VPN appliances.

Volexity

If you use the Ivanti integrity checking tool, the results it gives are encrypted and can only be read by Ivanti support.

Since there are thousands of #ConnectAround victims, this doesn’t scale. To compensate you can decrypt the results yourself now: https://gist.github.com/rxwx/03a036d8982c9a3cead0c053cf334605 HT @buffaloverflow

#threatintel

Encrypt and decrypt Pulse Secure configuration files (no password)

Encrypt and decrypt Pulse Secure configuration files (no password) - pulse-cfg-crypt.py

Gist
Unfortunately it looks like Ivanti have been a bit naughty with CVE allocation too. @buffaloverflow #ConnectAround

Complete exploitation info for #ConnectAround is now public. https://attackerkb.com/topics/AdUh6by52K/cve-2023-46805

It’s a chaotic mix of ../../ directory traversal and open APIs… if you haven’t applied the mitigations you’re going to have a really bad time as ransomware groups will jump on the train soon. #threatintel

CVE-2023-46805 | AttackerKB

Starting January 10, 2024, multiple parties (Ivanti, Volexity, and Mandiant) disclosed the existence of a zero-day exploit chain affecting Ivanti Connect Secur…

AttackerKB
Threat Brief: Ivanti Vulnerabilities CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887

Ivanti VPNs can be exploited by CVE-2023-46805 (High severity) and CVE-2024-21887 (Critical severity), chained together to run commands without authentication.

Unit 42

Amazing - first mass spraying of #ConnectAround by notChina and they’re delivering.. coin miners. 🤣🤣🤣

https://infosec.exchange/@greynoise/111773096176640713

#threatintel

GreyNoise (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image We're seeing more than just scanning for the recent pair of Ivanti Connect Secure vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887) - we're seeing real exploitation attempts - this one installs a Bitcoin miner! Patch your hosts ASAP!

Infosec Exchange

I strongly suspect there are a whole bunch of large orgs running incidents for #ConnectAround now.

Why? Pulse Secure boxes which didn't have the mitigation supplied have stopped responding totally for over a day.. when Shodan history shows they've been running on same IP for years.

High Signal Detection and Exploitation of Ivanti's Pulse Connect Secure Auth Bypass & RCE

Last week, Ivanti disclosed two critical vulnerabilities affecting Ivanti Pulse Connect Secure - CVE-2023-46805 (Authentication Bypass) & CVE-2024-21887 (Remote Command Execution).

Latest #ConnectAround issue - there’s no patch, and the mitigation silently fails to work if an admin makes a config change elsewhere.

If you run Pulse Secure I’d suggest being very cautious.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ivanti-vpn-appliances-vulnerable-if-pushing-configs-after-mitigation/

#threatintel

Ivanti: VPN appliances vulnerable if pushing configs after mitigation

Ivanti warned admins to stop pushing new device configurations to appliances after applying mitigations because this will leave them vulnerable to ongoing attacks exploiting two zero-day vulnerabilities.

BleepingComputer

Latest on #ConnectAround - the vendor promised patches weeks later, but hasn’t been hitting its own milestones to release said patches.

https://www.securityweek.com/ivanti-struggling-to-hit-zero-day-patch-release-schedule/

#threatintel

Ivanti Struggling to Hit Zero-Day Patch Release Schedule

Ivanti is struggling to hit its own timeline for the delivery of patches for critical -- and already exploited -- flaws in VPN appliances.

SecurityWeek

More hilarity on #ConnectAround - there’s now two NEW vulnerabilities in Ivanti Pulse Secure, being actively exploited as zero days too - no patches for many versions.

Updated advisory with updated mitigations you need to reapply:
https://forums.ivanti.com/s/article/KB-CVE-2023-46805-Authentication-Bypass-CVE-2024-21887-Command-Injection-for-Ivanti-Connect-Secure-and-Ivanti-Policy-Secure-Gateways?language=en_US

CVEs: CVE-2024-21893 and CVE-2024-21888

CERT advisory: https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Cybersicherheitswarnungen/DE/2024/2024-205101-1032.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2

Ivanti recommend you factory reset your devices in their advisory.

HT @fthy

#threatintel

Ivanti Community

@GossiTheDog @fthy good heavens. these geniuses
@GossiTheDog @fthy and no sign of an update from their RSS feed this time..
@GossiTheDog @fthy
Bonus:
We all know that if your device might be compromised, the ICT (even external) cannot be trusted.
"Factory reset" also falls into this boat.
In both cases, you're nicely asking a maybe-compromised device to do a thing.
Thoughts and prayers...
@GossiTheDog They're gonna need to rebrand again after this, womp womp
@GossiTheDog @fthy at this point vuln scanners should just alert on any Ivanti software they detect regardless of what it is and what version.
@GossiTheDog And meanwhile its a human race condition between admins pushing configs vs admins reapplying the mitigation! 👏
@meriksson @GossiTheDog and that mitigation they have seems to have been bypassed by some
@GossiTheDog - Ivanti said patches would be available from w/c 22nd Jan, its Wednesday and still no patch this week. When will they take security seriously and release a proper patch?
@GossiTheDog Is there a way to find remotely if an Ivanti setup has been compromised? Not just vulnerable but actually compromised?
@GossiTheDog Maybe it's because they have been ransomwared already.
Cyber attacks on Kent councils disrupt online services

Three councils say they are working with the National Cyber Security Centre after the attacks.

BBC News
@GossiTheDog Hey, better than ransomware...
@GossiTheDog coin miners always seem to be the first on the scene, and it's always disappointing

@GossiTheDog

../../ directory traversal

What year is it?!

Bugtraq: IIS %c1%1c remote command execution

@GossiTheDog This is kinda disconcerting. I mean, these are essentially 90s/early 2000s web app sec 101 vulns. Have we not made *any* progress in the last 20 years? OK, I mean, we're using Python now for invoking web shells, not PHP, but other than that...
@GossiTheDog I'm getting a gateway error for this link. Did they take the article down?

@GossiTheDog @buffaloverflow IIRC, this is actually how mitre used to ask people to do it ages past, though it's been a few years since that was changed (with the cve.org split I think?).

Which seems crazy but I think they were just aiming to get companies to buy in.

@GossiTheDog @buffaloverflow another good example on how not to handle the situation as a vendor.
@GossiTheDog @buffaloverflow Oh - now I’m confused. I was not aware that the external ICT produced any output, apart from the summary number of files, etc. How do I get the ICT output file?

@dezz @GossiTheDog @buffaloverflow

I think it only produces a file if it finds mismatched files or an issue?

@Daithig That makes sense. Thanks
@GossiTheDog not any more I’m afraid. GitHub made me take it down as they received a complaint.
@buffaloverflow @GossiTheDog You could accidentally create a magnet link for the file and make it available to anyone/researcher that needs access to the file. They'd have a job getting that taken down

@GossiTheDog No response from our critical infrastructure guys.

Meanwhile, the boss said that she'll inform DANS (a state security agency here; something like a combination of the FBI and the NSA; deals with cyber crimes and other stuff too) and scolded me for trying to contact the vulnerable company.

Apparently, this is not safe to do here. According to her, another colleague did that once - reported a vulnerability to a company that had vulnerable machines - and the company sent him a couple of bouncers to "discourage him form poking our computers". I kid you not.

@GossiTheDog same has been true for the last 5 years.

@GossiTheDog Are you using the watchTowr Labs method?

I used that to scan the machine at our critical infrastructure company. Not only is the machine indeed vulnerable but it also has an SSL certificate that has expired 101 days ago, which means that literally nobody is paying attention to it.

No wonder my e-mail went unanswered...

@GossiTheDog Three days since I've notified the critical infrastructure guys here that one of their machines is vulnerable. So far, no sign that they've read my e-mail. Oh, well.
@GossiTheDog Thank you so much for the info.
@GossiTheDog have you come across any insights on how to "search" for this new ConnectAround attacks in logs?
@GossiTheDog that's 4 twigs and a pretty rock, tyvm

@GossiTheDog I get at least 5 twigs, and sometimes a pile of dirt!

You're so rude.

@GossiTheDog Sometimes they spit in the dirt to remind me how good I have it for being the only security SME and also doing my standard T3 ops work.