Someone has been scanning the internet in search of SAP systems affected by the recently disclosed vulnerability dubbed RECON. The scanning activity started just as a researcher released a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit.
Onapsis, a company specializing in the protection of business-critical applications, revealed on Tuesday that many SAP products that use the NetWeaver AS Java technology stack could be exposed to remote attacks due to a critical vulnerability tracked as CVE-2020-6287 and dubbed RECON (Remotely Exploitable Code On NetWeaver).
A remote and unauthenticated attacker who has access to the targeted system can exploit CVE-2020-6287 to create a new SAP admin user, allowing them to gain full control of the system.
SAP has released patches for the flaw, but Onapsis warned that 40,000 SAP customers could be impacted and the cybersecurity company estimated that there were at least 2,500 vulnerable systems that could be targeted directly from the internet.
Shortly after SAP released patches, a researcher made available a PoC exploit for the RECON flaw and CVE-2020-6286, a related issue impacting NetWeaver AS Java.
The released exploit cannot be used to create an admin account. Instead, it exploits the two vulnerabilities to check if a SAP server is vulnerable to attacks and to download any ZIP file from the targeted server.
Threat intelligence company Bad Packets reported seeing “mass scanning activity” since Wednesday, July 15, at around 6 PM UTC.
It’s unclear if the scans are conducted by cybersecurity companies, independent researchers, malicious actors or all of these categories.
Due to the high risk of exploitation, organizations have been advised to install the patches as soon as possible. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has advised organizations to first patch internet-facing systems and then internal systems. Mitigations are also available for SAP customers that cannot immediately install the updates provided by the vendor.
According to Onapsis, the RECON vulnerability can allow an attacker to read, modify or delete database records and files, which, depending on the targeted organization, can enable them to steal personal and financial information, alter financial records, change banking details, disrupt operations, execute operating system commands, and cover their tracks by deleting or modifying logs and other files.
Related: Hackers Find Way to Bypass Mitigation for Exploited BIG-IP Vulnerability
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Related: Hackers Scanning for Apache Tomcat Servers Vulnerable to Ghostcat Attacks
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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