A flaw was found in the libreswan client plugin for NetworkManager (NetkworkManager-libreswan), where it fails to properly sanitize the VPN configuration from the local unprivileged user. In this configuration, composed by a key-value format, the plugin fails to escape special characters, leading the application to interpret values as keys. One of the most critical parameters that could be abused by a malicious user is the `leftupdown`key. This key takes an executable command as a value and is used to specify what executes as a callback in NetworkManager-libreswan to retrieve configuration settings back to NetworkManager. As NetworkManager uses Polkit to allow an unprivileged user to control the system's network configuration, a malicious actor could achieve local privilege escalation and potential code execution as root in the targeted machine.

Red Hat, Inc. AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Red Hat, Inc. https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-9050 [No types assigned]

Red Hat, Inc. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2313828 [No types assigned]