Description

Security researchers Daan Keuper, Thijs Alkemade, and Khaled Nassar from Computest Sector 7 uncovered a severe vulnerability (CVE-2024-11944) in TrueNAS CORE, an open-source storage OS developed by iXsystems. This flaw allows attackers on the same network to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable systems without needing authentication. The issue, identified during the Pwn2Own cybersecurity competition, stems from the improper handling of user-supplied paths in the tarfile.extractall function. This directory traversal vulnerability lets attackers create a malicious payload that could execute unintended file operations, potentially resulting in remote code execution (RCE) with root privileges. Although the CVSS score of 7.5 indicates high severity, exploitation is challenging, requiring specific conditions. Advanced attackers, leveraging other weaknesses, could use this flaw to gain complete system control, jeopardizing the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data stored on TrueNAS devices. The flaw impacts several versions of TrueNAS CORE, with iXsystems confirming its presence in the default setup. Since it doesn’t require user interaction or authentication, unpatched systems in network-adjacent settings are particularly vulnerable. To address this issue, iXsystems has released a patch in TrueNAS CORE 13.0-U6.3. This discovery highlights the need for continuous security testing and timely patching, especially in open-source software. TrueNAS CORE users should act swiftly to install the update and safeguard their systems against potential threats. The incident also underscores the importance of regular updates and maintaining strong network security practices.