Nutanix AHV : Multiple Vulnerabilities (NXSA-AHV-10.3)

critical Nessus Plugin ID 240537

Synopsis

The Nutanix AHV host is affected by multiple vulnerabilities .

Description

The version of AHV installed on the remote host is prior to AHV-10.3. It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the NXSA-AHV-10.3 advisory.

- In jQuery versions greater than or equal to 1.0.3 and before 3.5.0, passing HTML containing <option> elements from untrusted sources - even after sanitizing it - to one of jQuery's DOM manipulation methods (i.e. .html(), .append(), and others) may execute untrusted code. This problem is patched in jQuery 3.5.0.
(CVE-2020-11023)

- An issue was discovered in libexpat before 2.6.3. nextScaffoldPart in xmlparse.c can have an integer overflow for m_groupSize on 32-bit platforms (where UINT_MAX equals SIZE_MAX). (CVE-2024-45492)

- A vulnerability was found in Unbound due to incorrect default permissions, allowing any process outside the unbound group to modify the unbound runtime configuration. If a process can connect over localhost to port 8953, it can alter the configuration of unbound.service. This flaw allows an unprivileged attacker to manipulate a running instance, potentially altering forwarders, allowing them to track all queries forwarded by the local resolver, and, in some cases, disrupting resolving altogether. (CVE-2024-1488)

- NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.21.0 contains a vulnerability when handling replies with very large RRsets that it needs to perform name compression for. Malicious upstreams responses with very large RRsets can cause Unbound to spend a considerable time applying name compression to downstream replies. This can lead to degraded performance and eventually denial of service in well orchestrated attacks. The vulnerability can be exploited by a malicious actor querying Unbound for the specially crafted contents of a malicious zone with very large RRsets. Before Unbound replies to the query it will try to apply name compression which was an unbounded operation that could lock the CPU until the whole packet was complete. Unbound version 1.21.1 introduces a hard limit on the number of name compression calculations it is willing to do per packet. Packets that need more compression will result in semi- compressed packets or truncated packets, even on TCP for huge messages, to avoid locking the CPU for long.
This change should not affect normal DNS traffic. (CVE-2024-8508)

- Flatpak is a Linux application sandboxing and distribution framework. Prior to versions 1.14.0 and 1.15.10, a malicious or compromised Flatpak app using persistent directories could access and write files outside of what it would otherwise have access to, which is an attack on integrity and confidentiality.
When `persistent=subdir` is used in the application permissions (represented as `--persist=subdir` in the command-line interface), that means that an application which otherwise doesn't have access to the real user home directory will see an empty home directory with a writeable subdirectory `subdir`. Behind the scenes, this directory is actually a bind mount and the data is stored in the per-application directory as `~/.var/app/$APPID/subdir`. This allows existing apps that are not aware of the per-application directory to still work as intended without general home directory access. However, the application does have write access to the application directory `~/.var/app/$APPID` where this directory is stored. If the source directory for the `persistent`/`--persist` option is replaced by a symlink, then the next time the application is started, the bind mount will follow the symlink and mount whatever it points to into the sandbox. Partial protection against this vulnerability can be provided by patching Flatpak using the patches in commits ceec2ffc and 98f79773. However, this leaves a race condition that could be exploited by two instances of a malicious app running in parallel. Closing the race condition requires updating or patching the version of bubblewrap that is used by Flatpak to add the new `--bind-fd` option using the patch and then patching Flatpak to use it. If Flatpak has been configured at build-time with `-Dsystem_bubblewrap=bwrap` (1.15.x) or `--with-system-bubblewrap=bwrap` (1.14.x or older), or a similar option, then the version of bubblewrap that needs to be patched is a system copy that is distributed separately, typically `/usr/bin/bwrap`. This configuration is the one that is typically used in Linux distributions. If Flatpak has been configured at build-time with `-Dsystem_bubblewrap=` (1.15.x) or with `--without-system-bubblewrap` (1.14.x or older), then it is the bundled version of bubblewrap that is included with Flatpak that must be patched. This is typically installed as `/usr/libexec/flatpak-bwrap`.
This configuration is the default when building from source code. For the 1.14.x stable branch, these changes are included in Flatpak 1.14.10. The bundled version of bubblewrap included in this release has been updated to 0.6.3. For the 1.15.x development branch, these changes are included in Flatpak 1.15.10.
The bundled version of bubblewrap in this release is a Meson wrap subproject, which has been updated to 0.10.0. The 1.12.x and 1.10.x branches will not be updated for this vulnerability. Long-term support OS distributions should backport the individual changes into their versions of Flatpak and bubblewrap, or update to newer versions if their stability policy allows it. As a workaround, avoid using applications using the `persistent` (`--persist`) permission. (CVE-2024-42472)

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Update the Nutanix AHV software to the recommended version. Before upgrading: if this cluster is registered with Prism Central, ensure that Prism Central has been upgraded first to a compatible version. Refer to the Software Product Interoperability page on the Nutanix portal.

See Also

http://www.nessus.org/u?639d2152

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 240537

File Name: nutanix_NXSA-AHV-10_3.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Family: Misc.

Published: 6/25/2025

Updated: 6/25/2025

Supported Sensors: Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: High

Score: 7.3

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.3

Temporal Score: 3.6

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2020-11023

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 9.1

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:F/RL:O/RC:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2024-45492

CVSS v4

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.2

Threat Score: 9.2

Threat Vector: CVSS:4.0/E:A

Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2024-3596

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:nutanix:ahv

Required KB Items: Host/Nutanix/Data/Node/Version, Host/Nutanix/Data/Node/Type

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 6/25/2025

Vulnerability Publication Date: 4/29/2020

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerability Due Dates: 2/13/2025

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2020-11023, CVE-2022-49043, CVE-2024-10041, CVE-2024-10963, CVE-2024-11187, CVE-2024-12087, CVE-2024-12088, CVE-2024-12747, CVE-2024-1488, CVE-2024-3596, CVE-2024-4032, CVE-2024-42472, CVE-2024-45490, CVE-2024-45491, CVE-2024-45492, CVE-2024-50602, CVE-2024-5535, CVE-2024-56171, CVE-2024-56326, CVE-2024-5742, CVE-2024-6232, CVE-2024-6923, CVE-2024-8508, CVE-2025-24528, CVE-2025-24928