Vulnerabilities > CVE-2022-25165 - Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition vulnerability in Amazon AWS Client VPN 2.0.0
Attack vector
LOCAL Attack complexity
MEDIUM Privileges required
NONE Confidentiality impact
COMPLETE Integrity impact
COMPLETE Availability impact
COMPLETE Summary
An issue was discovered in Amazon AWS VPN Client 2.0.0. A TOCTOU race condition exists during the validation of VPN configuration files. This allows parameters outside of the AWS VPN Client allow list to be injected into the configuration file prior to the AWS VPN Client service (running as SYSTEM) processing the file. Dangerous arguments can be injected by a low-level user such as log, which allows an arbitrary destination to be specified for writing log files. This leads to an arbitrary file write as SYSTEM with partial control over the files content. This can be abused to cause an elevation of privilege or denial of service.
Vulnerable Configurations
| Part | Description | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Application | 1 |
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- 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.
- Leveraging Time-of-Check and Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) Race Conditions This attack targets a race condition occurring between the time of check (state) for a resource and the time of use of a resource. The typical example is the file access. The attacker can leverage a file access race condition by "running the race", meaning that he would modify the resource between the first time the target program accesses the file and the time the target program uses the file. During that period of time, the attacker could do something such as replace the file and cause an escalation of privilege.