Attackers target zero-day vulnerability in geospatial data platform GeoServer

Security researchers have seen evidence that attackers are attempting to exploit a currently unpatched SQL injection vulnerability in GeoServer, an open-source web server for managing and publishing geospatial data.

The software is widely used by organizations in many industries, including the government, defense, science, education, engineering and technology sectors, and has been targeted by hackers in the past.

A bug bounty hunter shared the vulnerability Wednesday on X as a zero day. According to his post, the jsonArrayContains function contains a vulnerability that allows unauthenticated users to inject SQL commands into the database.

If the database runs with administrator permissions on Microsoft SQL Server, the account also has the ability to execute commands on the system, so the SQL injection becomes a remote code execution vector. Another user confirmed on X that they were able to reproduce the flaw in a non-default configuration.

“Within hours of public disclosure, we began observing exploitation attempts and have since recorded hundreds of attempts originating from a small number of source IP addresses,” researchers from security firm watchTowr told CSO via email on Thursday. “Yet another example of how quickly attackers move once a vulnerability enters the public domain.”

So far, the researchers haven’t seen any malicious payloads or commands being sent, and the attempts look more like probes to identify vulnerable GeoServer instances. However, this is likely to change; GeoServer has a history of being exploited, since its users are usually seen as high value targets.

Until a patch becomes available, organizations who run GeoServer should identify their internet exposed instances and restrict public access to them. They should also check the logs for any signs that exploitation has already occurred.