CVE-2023-6940
📋 TL;DR
CVE-2023-6940 is a command injection vulnerability in MLflow that allows attackers to execute arbitrary commands on the victim system by tricking users into downloading a malicious configuration file. This affects MLflow users who download and process untrusted configuration files, potentially leading to complete system compromise.
💻 Affected Systems
- MLflow
📦 What is this software?
Mlflow by Lfprojects
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Full system compromise with attacker gaining complete control over the victim machine, allowing data theft, lateral movement, and persistent backdoor installation.
Likely Case
Local privilege escalation leading to unauthorized access to sensitive data, system configuration changes, and potential ransomware deployment.
If Mitigated
Limited impact with proper network segmentation and user privilege restrictions, potentially only affecting isolated environments.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires user interaction (downloading malicious config) but is straightforward once the malicious file is processed.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: MLflow 2.10.0 and later
Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/mlflow/mlflow/commit/5139b1087d686fa52e2b087e09da66aff86297b1
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Update MLflow to version 2.10.0 or later using pip: pip install --upgrade mlflow>=2.10.0
2. Restart all MLflow services
3. Verify the update was successful
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Restrict configuration file sources
allOnly allow configuration files from trusted sources and implement file validation
Implement user privilege restrictions
linuxRun MLflow with minimal necessary privileges to limit impact of successful exploitation
sudo -u mlflow_user mlflow server
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement strict network segmentation to isolate MLflow instances
- Deploy application allowlisting to prevent execution of unauthorized commands
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check MLflow version: mlflow --version. If version is below 2.10.0, the system is vulnerable.Check Version:
mlflow --versionVerify Fix Applied:
After updating, run mlflow --version and confirm version is 2.10.0 or higher.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual command execution patterns in system logs
- Suspicious configuration file downloads
- MLflow process spawning unexpected child processes
Network Indicators:
- Unexpected outbound connections from MLflow instances
- Command and control traffic patterns
SIEM Query:
source="mlflow.logs" AND (process_execution="*sh*" OR process_execution="*cmd*" OR process_execution="*powershell*")