Critical Linux Kernel Vulnerability Affecting NetApp Products

Summary

A Critical vulnerability has been identified within NetApp products categorized as CVE-2023-45871. This vulnerability was identified was discovered and reported to NVD on 10/19/2023 and was recently reported affecting NetApp products on 11/10/2023. This vulnerability affects Linux kernel versions prior to 6.5.3 and as multiple NetApp products utilize the Linux kernel, they are vulnerable.

Impact Assessment

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to disclosure of sensitive information, addition or modification of data, or denial of service. There are no confirmed affected products for this vulnerability at this time, but there are several products which are currently being investigated as potentially vulnerable. These potential vulnerable products are listed below:

1. AFF Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) - A700s
2. Brocade Fabric Operating System Firmware
3. NetApp HCI Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) - H410C
4. NetApp HCI Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) - H610C
5. NetApp HCI Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) - H610S
6. NetApp HCI Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) - H615C
7. NetApp HCI Compute Node (Bootstrap OS)
8. NetApp SolidFire & HCI Management Node
9. NetApp SolidFire & HCI Storage Node (Element Software)
10. SnapCenter Plug-in for VMware vSphere/BlueXP backup and Recovery for Virtual Machine

What it means for you

Due to this vulnerability still being under investigation, it is important to audit your organization’s software inventory to ensure that none of the products under investigation are in use by your organization. If they are using any of the products under investigation, monitoring the vendor’s advisory is paramount as no workarounds or software fixes have been supplied.

Remediation

For the vulnerability in general updating to a Linux Kernel version after 6.5.3 would remediate. However, for NetApp products there has been no official workarounds or fixes for this vulnerability. The only option is to monitor the advisory to check for possible updates on status for remediation.

Business Implications

Exploitation of the vulnerability can lead to disclosure of sensitive information, modification of data, or denial of service. All of which could cause monetary, reputational, or data loss because of exploitation.

Access Point Technology Recommends

Monitor: Check the vendor’s advisory periodically for updates if you are potentially affected by this vulnerability as the products under investigation could be classified as vulnerable at any time. In this case a vendor patch would be the only way to remediate as there are no workarounds.

Defense in Depth: A vulnerability and situation such as this reinforces the ideal of defense in depth. Having multiple layers of protections in place will assist in preventing exploitation of critical vulnerabilities.

Associated Bulletins

https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20231110-0001/

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=bb5ed01cd2428cd25b1c88a3a9cba87055eb289f