Security News > 2021 > January > Vulnerability Exposes F5 BIG-IP Systems to Remote DoS Attacks
A vulnerability discovered by a researcher in a BIG-IP product from F5 Networks can be exploited to launch remote denial-of-service attacks.
The security flaw was discovered by Nikita Abramov, a researcher at cybersecurity solutions provider Positive Technologies, and it impacts certain versions of BIG-IP Access Policy Manager, a secure access solution that simplifies and centralizes access to applications, APIs and data.
According to F5 Networks, the vulnerability is related to a component named Traffic Management Microkernel, which processes all load-balanced traffic on BIG-IP systems.
"Traffic processing is disrupted while TMM restarts. If the affected BIG-IP system is configured as part of a device group, the system triggers a failover to the peer device."
Abramov noted that exploiting this vulnerability does not require any tools - the attacker simply has to send a specially crafted HTTP request to the server hosting the BIG-IP configuration utility, which results in access to the system being blocked "For a while."
Last year, Positive Technologies informed F5 of a critical BIG-IP vulnerability that ended up being exploited in the wild, including by profit-driven cybercriminals and state-sponsored cyberspies.
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