CVE-2021-25139

What is this vulnerability?

CVE-2021-25139 is categorized as a critical Out-of-bounds Write flaw with a CVSS base score of 9.8. Based on our vulnerability intelligence, this issue occurs when the application fails to securely handle untrusted data boundaries.

A potential security vulnerability has been identified in the HPE Moonshot Provisioning Manager v1.20. The HPE Moonshot Provisioning Manager is an application that is installed in a VMWare or Microsoft Hyper-V environment that is used to setup and configure an HPE Moonshot 1500 chassis. This vulnerability could be remotely exploited by an unauthenticated user to cause a stack based buffer overflow using user supplied input to the khuploadfile.cgi CGI ELF. The stack based buffer overflow could lead to Remote Code Execution, Denial of Service, and/or compromise system integrity. Note: HPE recommends that customers discontinue the use of the HPE Moonshot Provisioning Manager. The HPE Moonshot Provisioning Manager application is discontinued, no longer supported, is not available to download from the HPE Support Center, and no patch is available.

This architectural defect enables adversaries to bypass intended security controls, directly manipulating the application's execution state or data layer. Immediate strategic intervention is required.

Risk Assessment

Impact on Systems

✅ Remote Code Execution: Attackers can overwrite the instruction pointer to redirect execution to malicious shellcode.

✅ Memory Corruption: Overwriting adjacent memory regions can corrupt critical application state, leading to privilege escalation.

✅ Denial of Service: Triggering segmentation faults results in immediate disruption of critical systems.

How to Fix and Mitigate CVE-2021-25139

1. Apply Vendor Patches: Upgrade affected components to their latest, non-vulnerable versions immediately.
2. Implement Input Validation: Ensure all user-supplied data is validated, sanitized, and type-checked before processing.
3. Deploy Runtime Protection: Use Precogs continuous monitoring to detect exploitation attempts in real time.
4. Audit Dependencies: Review and update all third-party libraries and transitive dependencies.

Defending with Precogs AI

HPE Moonshot Provisioning Manager contains a potential security vulnerability (often command injection or authentication bypass). Attackers exploit insecure management interfaces to take control of the server provisioning infrastructure. Precogs API Security Engine maps all administrative endpoints against strict authentication requirements.

Use Precogs to continuously scan your codebase, binaries, APIs, and infrastructure for this vulnerability class and related attack patterns. Our AI-powered detection engine combines static analysis with threat intelligence to identify exploitable weaknesses before attackers do.

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Vulnerability Code Signature

Attack Data Flow

Vulnerable Code Pattern

// ❌ VULNERABLE: Out-of-bounds write
void process_data(char *input) {
    char buffer[64];
    // Taint sink: copies without bounds checking
    strcpy(buffer, input);
}

Secure Code Pattern

// ✅ SECURE: Bounded copy
void process_data(char *input) {
    char buffer[64];
    // Sanitized boundary check
    strncpy(buffer, input, sizeof(buffer) - 1);
    buffer[sizeof(buffer) - 1] = '\0';
}

How Precogs Detects This

Precogs Binary SAST engine explicitly uncovers memory boundary violations and unsafe memory management functions in compiled binaries.\n