Enterprise organizations using F5 Networks' BIG-IP and BIG-IQ application delivery technologies are being urged to immediately update their systems to address multiple critical vulnerabilities in the products.
Several of the vulnerabilities enable remote attackers to take complete control of the systems to execute malicious code, disable services, create or delete files, and take other malicious actions.
"Unlike previous notable F5 exploits, not all of these can be easily hand-waved away by restricting external access to the administrative interfaces known as the 'control plane,'" says Justin Rhinehart, senior analyst at Bishop Fox. Two critical exploits disclosed this week affect the so-called data plane, which is the part responsible for handing any and all traffic going through the BIG-IP platform, he says. The only way to mitigate these exploits is by patching.
In a worst-case scenario, Rhinehart says, an attacker can use a vulnerable F5 BIG-IP appliance to break into the broader enterprise network.
"Remote command execution in a location with such privileged access is absolutely the stuff of nightmares," he says, "Attackers can use these devices to gain a foothold on a victim's network [and] attack sensitive targets that are not usually accessible from the outside world."
F5 Networks on Wednesday disclosed four critical vulnerabilities in BIG-IP 11.6 or 12.x and newer — one of which also impacted versions 6.x and 7.x of the company's BIG-IQ centralized management technology. In addition, F5 announced seven high severity bugs and 10 medium security issues impacting BIG-IP and BIG-IQ — technologies that many enterprise organizations use for a range of application delivery services, such as access control, load balancing, and app security. The company has released patches for all disclosed issues. ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
