COMMON ATTACK PATTERN ENUMERATION AND CLASSIFICATIONLive MITRE record

CAPEC-480

Escaping Virtualization

An adversary gains access to an application, service, or device with the privileges of an authorized or privileged user by escaping the confines of a virtualized environment. The adversary is then able to access resources or execute unauthorized code within the host environment, generally with the privileges of the user running the virtualized process. Successfully executing an attack of this type is often the first step in executing more complex attacks.

Abstraction

Standard

Typical severity

Very High

Likelihood of attack

Low

Understand the attack

What is this attack pattern?

An adversary gains access to an application, service, or device with the privileges of an authorized or privileged user by escaping the confines of a virtualized environment. The adversary is then able to access resources or execute unauthorized code within the host environment, generally with the privileges of the user running the virtualized process. Successfully executing an attack of this type is often the first step in executing more complex attacks.

Execution flow

How does the attack proceed, step by step?

1

Explore

Probing

The adversary probes the target application, service, or device to find a possible weakness that would allow escaping the virtualized environment.

Techniques used

  • Probing applications, services, or devices for virtualization weaknesses.
2

Experiment

Verify the exploitable security weaknesses

Using the found weakness, the adversary attempts to escape the virtualized environment.

Techniques used

  • Using an application weakness to escape a virtualized environment
3

Exploit

Execute more complex attacks

Once outside of the virtualized environment, the adversary attempts to perform other more complex attacks such as accessing system resources or executing unauthorized code within the host environment.

Techniques used

  • Executing complex attacks when given higher permissions by escaping a virtualized environment

Requirements

What does the attack require?

Prerequisites

  • Target application or infrastructure exposes an exploitable vulnerability surface.

Skills required

Not stated in the MITRE record.

Resources required

Not stated in the MITRE record.

Impact

What does a successful attack lead to?

Bypass Protection Mechanism

Affected scopes: Access Control, Authorization

Execute Unauthorized Commands

Affected scopes: Authorization

Gain Privileges

Affected scopes: Accountability, Authentication, Authorization, Non-Repudiation

Defence

How is it prevented and mitigated?

1
Ensure virtualization software is current and up-to-date.
2
Abide by the least privilege principle to avoid assigning users more privileges than necessary.