CVE-2022-46174 : Exploit Details and Defense Strategies

A race condition vulnerability was discovered during concurrent TLS mounts in efs-utils, affecting versions prior to v1.34.4. This CVE poses a moderate risk with a CVSS base score of 4.2.

Understanding CVE-2022-46174

This section provides insights into the nature and impact of the CVE-2022-46174 vulnerability.

What is CVE-2022-46174?

efs-utils is a collection of utilities for Amazon Elastic File System (EFS). The CVE pertains to a race condition issue within the Amazon EFS mount helper in versions v1.34.3 and below. Concurrent mount operations can lead to conflicts over the allocation of a local port, potentially causing failed mounts or misconfigured mappings.

The Impact of CVE-2022-46174

The vulnerability can result in failed mount operations or improper associations between local mount points and EFS file systems, impacting the stability and security of the file system.

Technical Details of CVE-2022-46174

This section delves into the specifics of the vulnerability, including affected systems, exploitation mechanisms, and mitigation strategies.

Vulnerability Description

efs-utils versions prior to v1.34.4 suffer from a race condition that arises during concurrent TLS mounts, leading to port allocation conflicts and potential mounting failures or misconfigured connections.

Affected Systems and Versions

The vulnerability affects efs-utils versions lower than v1.34.4 deployed in Amazon Elastic File System environments.

Exploitation Mechanism

By initiating concurrent mount operations using TLS, multiple instances can attempt to allocate the same local port, resulting in conflicts that disrupt the mounting process.

Mitigation and Prevention

In this section, we outline immediate steps and long-term practices to mitigate the CVE-2022-46174 vulnerability.

Immediate Steps to Take

Affected users are advised to update their efs-utils installation to version v1.34.4 or later to patch the vulnerability. No viable workarounds are available for this issue.

Long-Term Security Practices

Maintaining up-to-date software versions and monitoring security advisories can help prevent and address vulnerabilities in efs-utils and other software components.

Patching and Updates

Regularly applying patches and updates, such as upgrading to version v1.34.4 of efs-utils, is crucial to remediate known vulnerabilities and enhance the security of Amazon Elastic File System deployments.