Description

Dell ObjectScale, versions prior to 4.3.0.1, contain(s) an Uncontrolled Search Path Element vulnerability. A low privileged attacker with local access could potentially exploit this vulnerability, leading to Elevation of privileges.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.3",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-17T14:20:21.077Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-17T14:20:21.077Z",
  "executiveSummary": "Dell ObjectScale in versions prior to 4.3.0.1 contains an Uncontrolled Search Path Element vulnerability that poses significant security risks to system integrity and confidentiality.\nThis vulnerability allows a low-privileged attacker who has obtained local access to the target system to potentially escalate their privileges.\nThe flaw stems from improper handling of search paths within the affected product, enabling the execution of arbitrary code or malicious binaries loaded via untrusted search directories.\nSuccessful exploitation requires local access and low privileges, meaning an adversary must already possess an authenticated session or foothold on the underlying operating system.\nThe primary business risk involves complete system compromise through privilege escalation, allowing the attacker to bypass access controls, execute administrative functions, and potentially impact other tenants or core services managed by Dell ObjectScale.\nOrganizations deploying vulnerable instances must apply vendor-supplied updates immediately to remediate the search path resolution flaw.",
  "technicalDetails": "The root cause of this vulnerability is an Uncontrolled Search Path Element flaw, commonly associated with CWE-427.\nThe affected product, Dell ObjectScale in versions prior to 4.3.0.1, insecurely searches for dynamic link libraries, executables, or scripts without appropriately sanitizing or restricting the search directories to trusted, secure locations.\nWhen an application or service initializes or executes commands using relative paths or improperly configured environment variables (such as PATH), it may evaluate current working directories or user-writable locations prior to system directories.\nAn attacker with local access and low privileges can plant a malicious binary, script, or library with a legitimate filename into a directory that is inadvertently queried by the vulnerable application search path.\nUpon execution or interaction with the vulnerable component by a higher-privileged process or service, the application loads the malicious payload instead of the legitimate resource.\nThe attack flow proceeds as follows: first, the low-privileged attacker identifies a vulnerable service or executable within Dell ObjectScale that relies on an uncontrolled search path; second, the attacker places a malicious payload into a directory parsed by the search path before the legitimate asset is reached; third, the attacker triggers the application execution or waits for a scheduled service restart; fourth, the application executes the rogue payload under the security context of the parent process.\nThe post-exploitation impact includes successful elevation of privileges, granting the attacker higher-level access capabilities on the host operating system, potentially leading to unauthorized data access, system tampering, or persistent control over the affected Dell ObjectScale node."
}