Where
-Infinity
0
Severity
8.6
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:L

Oxford Nanopore MinKNOW before 24.06 relies on a client's source IP address for authentication.

First published (updated )
Severity
7.8
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Oxford Nanopore Technologies' MinKNOW software at or prior to version 24.11 stores authentication tokens in a file located in the system's temporary directory (/tmp) on the host machine. This directory is typically world-readable, allowing any local user or application to access the token. If the token is leaked (e.g., via malware infection or other local exploit), and remote access is enabled, it can be used to establish unauthorized remote connections to the sequencer. Remote access must be enabled for remote exploitation to succeed. This may occur either because the user has enabled remote access for legitimate operational reasons or because malware with elevated privileges (e.g., sudo access) enables it without user consent. This vulnerability can be chained with remote access capabilities to generate a developer token from a remote device. Developer tokens can be created with arbitrary expiration dates, enabling persistent access to the sequencer and bypassing standard authentication mechanisms.

Remedy

Oxford Nanopore Technologies recommends users upgrade to MinKNOW Versions later than 24.11 https://nanoporetech.com/software/  to eliminate these vulnerabilities. If users are unable to upgrade to v24.11 to reduce risk from the remaining Authentication Token and Token Lock vulnerabilities, Oxford Nanopore advises the following additional measures for users on version 24.06: * Remote Connect: Keep Remote Connect disabled in MinKNOW unless strictly required, and enable it only within trusted network environments. * Endpoint Protection: Install and maintain antivirus and malware scanning tools to mitigate denial-of-service (DoS) conditions arising from local exploitation or malware. Users running older versions of MinKNOW who cannot upgrade immediately should contact Oxford Nanopore Support https://nanoporetech.com/about/contact  for guidance on securing their configurations. Downloading the release requires users to be logged into the Nanopore Community.
First published (updated )

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