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Microsoft Exchange CVE-2020-16875 Proof-of-Concept Code Released

September 11, 2020 | 1 MIN READ

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THE THREAT

On September 10th, researcher Steven Seeley publicly released Proof-of-Concept (PoC) code for a critical remote code execution vulnerability he discovered affecting Microsoft Exchange Servers 2016 and 2019 (CVE-2020-16875). This vulnerability was originally announced by Microsoft on September 8th [1]. Successful exploitation would result in execution of arbitrary code in the context of the SYSTEM user, allowing an attacker to view, change, and delete data, or create new accounts on the impacted system.

In order to exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would require credentials belonging to accounts in a specific Exchange role. Although eSentire assesses that widespread exploitation of this vulnerability remains unlikely, affected organizations are advised to prioritize applying the relevant patches to remediate this threat as part of a defense in depth strategy.

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Additional information

Steven Seeley (mr_me), the researcher who disclosed the vulnerability to Microsoft, authored two PoC exploits for the vulnerability. An advisory was posted on the srcincite.io website on September 10th, 2020, containing the PoCs and additional information on the vulnerability [2]. According to the advisory, the “flaw exists within the processing of the New-DlpPolicy cmdlet. The issue results from the lack of proper validation of user-supplied template data when creating a dlp policy”. Mr. Seeley also confirms that credentials belonging to a user with a specific Exchange role (DLP Role) are required to successfully exploit this vulnerability.

Requirements for exploitation for both PoC exploits:

PowerShell PoC Exploit

Python PoC Exploit

Given the above conditions for successful exploitation, eSentire assesses that widespread exploitation of this vulnerability is unlikely. The vulnerability is more likely to be exploited post-compromise, as part of an ongoing intrusion where an attacker has obtained the necessary requirements for exploitation.

References:

[1] https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-us/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2020-16875

[2] https://srcincite.io/advisories/src-2020-0019/

[3] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/architecture/client-access/exchange-admin-center?view=exchserver-2019

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