Cacti Command Injection Vulnerability
Summary
| CVE | CVE-2022-46169 |
|---|---|
| State | PUBLIC |
| Assigner | [email protected] |
| Source Priority | CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback |
| Published | 2022-12-05 21:15:00 UTC |
| Updated | 2023-11-07 03:55:00 UTC |
| Description | Cacti is an open source platform which provides a robust and extensible operational monitoring and fault management framework for users. In affected versions a command injection vulnerability allows an unauthenticated user to execute arbitrary code on a server running Cacti, if a specific data source was selected for any monitored device. The vulnerability resides in the `remote_agent.php` file. This file can be accessed without authentication. This function retrieves the IP address of the client via `get_client_addr` and resolves this IP address to the corresponding hostname via `gethostbyaddr`. After this, it is verified that an entry within the `poller` table exists, where the hostname corresponds to the resolved hostname. If such an entry was found, the function returns `true` and the client is authorized. This authorization can be bypassed due to the implementation of the `get_client_addr` function. The function is defined in the file `lib/functions.php` and checks serval `$_SERVER` variables to determine the IP address of the client. The variables beginning with `HTTP_` can be arbitrarily set by an attacker. Since there is a default entry in the `poller` table with the hostname of the server running Cacti, an attacker can bypass the authentication e.g. by providing the header `Forwarded-For: <TARGETIP>`. This way the function `get_client_addr` returns the IP address of the server running Cacti. The following call to `gethostbyaddr` will resolve this IP address to the hostname of the server, which will pass the `poller` hostname check because of the default entry. After the authorization of the `remote_agent.php` file is bypassed, an attacker can trigger different actions. One of these actions is called `polldata`. The called function `poll_for_data` retrieves a few request parameters and loads the corresponding `poller_item` entries from the database. If the `action` of a `poller_item` equals `POLLER_ACTION_SCRIPT_PHP`, the function `proc_open` is used to execute a PHP script. The attacker-controlled parameter `$poller_id` is retrieved via the function `get_nfilter_request_var`, which allows arbitrary strings. This variable is later inserted into the string passed to `proc_open`, which leads to a command injection vulnerability. By e.g. providing the `poller_id=;id` the `id` command is executed. In order to reach the vulnerable call, the attacker must provide a `host_id` and `local_data_id`, where the `action` of the corresponding `poller_item` is set to `POLLER_ACTION_SCRIPT_PHP`. Both of these ids (`host_id` and `local_data_id`) can easily be bruteforced. The only requirement is that a `poller_item` with an `POLLER_ACTION_SCRIPT_PHP` action exists. This is very likely on a productive instance because this action is added by some predefined templates like `Device - Uptime` or `Device - Polling Time`. This command injection vulnerability allows an unauthenticated user to execute arbitrary commands if a `poller_item` with the `action` type `POLLER_ACTION_SCRIPT_PHP` (`2`) is configured. The authorization bypass should be prevented by not allowing an attacker to make `get_client_addr` (file `lib/functions.php`) return an arbitrary IP address. This could be done by not honoring the `HTTP_...` `$_SERVER` variables. If these should be kept for compatibility reasons it should at least be prevented to fake the IP address of the server running Cacti. This vulnerability has been addressed in both the 1.2.x and 1.3.x release branches with `1.2.23` being the first release containing the patch. |
Risk And Classification
EPSS: 0.944690000 probability, percentile 0.999980000 (date 2026-04-01)
CISA KEV: Listed on 2023-02-16; due 2023-03-09; ransomware use Unknown
Problem Types: CWE-78 | CWE-863
CISA Known Exploited Vulnerability
| Vendor | Cacti |
|---|---|
| Product | Cacti |
| Name | Cacti Command Injection Vulnerability |
| Required Action | Apply updates per vendor instructions. |
| Notes | https://github.com/Cacti/cacti/security/advisories/GHSA-6p93-p743-35gf; https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-46169 |
NVD Known Affected Configurations (CPE 2.3)
References
| Reference | Source | Link | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unauthenticated Command Injection · Advisory · Cacti/cacti · GitHub | MISC | github.com | |
| Merge pull request from GHSA-6p93-p743-35gf · Cacti/cacti@b43f13a · GitHub | MISC | github.com | |
| Correct issue with PHP 5.4 · Cacti/cacti@a8d59e8 · GitHub | MISC | github.com | |
| Merge pull request from GHSA-6p93-p743-35gf · Cacti/cacti@7f0e163 · GitHub | MISC | github.com | |
| CVE Program record | CVE.ORG | www.cve.org | canonical |
| NVD vulnerability detail | NVD | nvd.nist.gov | canonical, analysis |
| CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog | CISA | www.cisa.gov | kev |
No vendor comments have been submitted for this CVE.
Legacy QID Mappings
- 150641 Cacti Unauthenticated Command Injection Vulnerability (CVE-2022-46169)
- 181311 Debian Security Update for cacti (DSA 5298-1)
- 181453 Debian Security Update for cacti (DLA 3252-1)
- 182651 Debian Security Update for cacti (CVE-2022-46169)
- 283606 Fedora Security Update for cacti (FEDORA-2023-788d505ddc)
- 283607 Fedora Security Update for cacti (FEDORA-2023-d4085a681f)
- 354673 Amazon Linux Security Advisory for cacti : ALAS-2023-1675
- 691017 Free Berkeley Software Distribution (FreeBSD) Security Update for net (59c284f4-8d2e-11ed-9ce0-b42e991fc52e)
- 730703 Cacti Unauthenticated Command Injection Vulnerability