Oxeye, a cloud security platform, recently discovered a high-severity zero-day vulnerability in HashiCorp Vault Project, a popular identity-based secrets and encryption management system. The flaw was an SQL injection vulnerability that could have allowed threat actors remote code execution (RCE) capabilities. Oxeye’s Application Security Platform identified the zero-day as part of a standard deployment scan and concluded that threat actors could have used it to access sensitive data, play with it, and even run malicious apps on the target endpoints.
The centralized nature of configurations makes them a single point of truth, making them a lucrative target for threat actors. As such, organizations should prioritize the security of configuration files and other centralized components in modern applications. After disclosing the flaw to HashiCorp, the company released patches 1.13.1, 1.12.5, and 1.11.9.
According to Ron Vider, CTO and Co-Founder for Oxeye, “The importance of restricting access to critical tools and implementing adequate input validation to prevent SQL injection attacks is highlighted by this vulnerability in HashiCorp’s Vault project. To safeguard your environment, swiftly applying patches and ensuring security policies are current will ensure successful attacks are avoided.”
The flaw has since been addressed, and a patch has been released. Oxeye’s cloud-native application security platform found the zero-day in HashiCorp Vault Project completely autonomously, with no manual input or intervention. This highlights the importance of having a robust security system in place to detect and address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by threat actors.
Given the trend toward microservices in modern software development, configuration-based attacks like this are a significant threat and are expected to become more common. As such, organizations must prioritize the security of configuration files and other centralized components in modern applications.
In conclusion, the discovery of this zero-day vulnerability in HashiCorp Vault Project highlights the importance of having a robust security system in place to detect and address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by threat actors. Organizations must prioritize the security of configuration files and other centralized components in modern applications to avoid successful attacks. Swiftly applying patches and ensuring security policies are current will also help safeguard your environment.
