Description

Dell PowerStore contains a Protection Mechanism Failure vulnerability. An authenticated user with limited privileges could potentially exploit this vulnerability to bypass access restrictions and gain escalated privileges.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "8.8",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-01T15:17:29.567Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-01T15:17:29.567Z",
  "executiveSummary": "Dell PowerStore exhibits a Protection Mechanism Failure, classified as an improper access control vulnerability.\nThis flaw enables an authenticated user with limited privileges to circumvent existing authorization checks, resulting in unauthorized privilege escalation.\nThe vulnerability resides within the management interface and core service modules of the Dell PowerStore storage array, potentially allowing a lower-privileged entity to execute administrative actions or gain unauthorized system access.\nThe risk implication is significant as it undermines the multi-tenancy and role-based access control (RBAC) architecture, potentially exposing sensitive storage configurations and data-at-rest to malicious actors who have already established a low-level authenticated session.\nExploitation requires the attacker to hold valid, albeit restricted, credentials within the system.\nThe failure represents a critical breakdown in security boundary enforcement, permitting horizontal or vertical movement within the appliance management stack.",
  "technicalDetails": "The identified vulnerability is a Protection Mechanism Failure within the Dell PowerStore management plane. The root cause pertains to an flaw in the validation logic that governs authorization decisions when an authenticated user requests specific administrative operations or interface endpoints.\nThe system fails to strictly enforce role-based access control (RBAC) constraints during the transition from standard user operations to elevated management functions. In this context, the security subsystem relies on client-side or insufficiently validated server-side parameters to determine authorization status. An attacker with restricted privileges can intercept and manipulate the request structure—likely by modifying HTTP headers, API parameters, or object identifiers—to trigger backend processes intended only for administrative roles.\nThe attack flow follows a structured path: First, the attacker establishes a legitimate session with restricted privileges. Second, the attacker probes the API or management interface for sensitive endpoints that are improperly protected by the underlying security policy engine. Third, by crafting a malicious payload that bypasses the secondary authorization check, the attacker submits a request that the PowerStore system erroneously processes as authorized.\nBecause the system validates the session existence but fails to re-verify the specific authorization levels required for the requested operation, the Protection Mechanism Failure persists across multiple administrative components. The vulnerable component is likely the internal service layer responsible for orchestrating management tasks.\nPost-exploitation impact is severe, granting the attacker the ability to alter system configurations, access management logs, modify storage policies, or gain full control over the appliance's management interface. This effectively elevates the attacker's privilege level to that of an administrator, circumventing the intended security boundaries defined by the appliance’s authentication framework."
}