Vulnerabilities > CVE-2019-6321 - Improper Locking vulnerability in HP products

047910
CVSS 9.0 - CRITICAL
Attack vector
NETWORK
Attack complexity
LOW
Privileges required
SINGLE
Confidentiality impact
COMPLETE
Integrity impact
COMPLETE
Availability impact
COMPLETE
network
low complexity
hp
CWE-667
critical

Summary

HP has identified a security vulnerability with some versions of Workstation BIOS (UEFI Firmware) where the runtime BIOS code could be tampered with if the TPM is disabled. This vulnerability relates to Workstations whose TPM is disabled by default.

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

  • Leveraging Race Conditions
    This attack targets a race condition occurring when multiple processes access and manipulate the same resource concurrently and the outcome of the execution depends on the particular order in which the access takes place. The attacker can leverage a race condition by "running the race", modifying the resource and modifying the normal execution flow. For instance a race condition can occur while accessing a file, the attacker can trick the system by replacing the original file with his version and cause the system to read the malicious file.
  • Leveraging Race Conditions via Symbolic Links
    This attack leverages the use of symbolic links (Symlinks) in order to write to sensitive files. An attacker can create a Symlink link to a target file not otherwise accessible to her. When the privileged program tries to create a temporary file with the same name as the Symlink link, it will actually write to the target file pointed to by the attackers' Symlink link. If the attacker can insert malicious content in the temporary file she will be writing to the sensitive file by using the Symlink. The race occurs because the system checks if the temporary file exists, then creates the file. The attacker would typically create the Symlink during the interval between the check and the creation of the temporary file.