CVE-2022-33182

Vulnerability

A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the Brocade Fabric OS CLI, affecting versions prior to 9.1.0, 9.0.1e, 8.2.3c, and 8.2.0cbn5. The flaw resides in the handling of the switch commands supportlink, firmwaredownload, portcfgupload, license, and fosexec. A local authenticated user can exploit these commands to escalate privileges to root. The vulnerability was discovered during internal penetration testing [1].

Exploitation

An attacker must have local authenticated access to the Brocade switch CLI. No additional network position or user interaction is required beyond valid credentials. The attacker can execute any of the listed commands (supportlink, firmwaredownload, portcfgupload, license, or fosexec) with arguments that trigger privilege escalation, resulting in root-level command execution [1].

Impact

Successful exploitation grants the attacker full root privileges on the affected Brocade switch. This leads to complete compromise of the device, including the ability to modify system configuration, access sensitive data, disrupt operations, and potentially pivot to other network resources [1].

Mitigation

Broadcom has released security updates in Brocade Fabric OS versions v9.1.1, v9.0.1e, v8.2.3c, v8.2.0_cbn5, v7.4.2j, and v9.1.0b. Users should upgrade to one of these fixed versions. No workarounds are documented; applying the patch is the recommended mitigation [1].