CVE-2024-56137
Published: 02 January 2025
Description
Adversaries may abuse command and script interpreters to execute commands, scripts, or binaries.
Security Summary
CVE-2024-56137 is a remote command execution vulnerability (CWE-78: OS Command Injection) affecting MaxKB, an open-source knowledge base question-answering system built on large language models and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). The issue resides in the function library module and impacts versions prior to 1.9.0, where privileged users can inject and execute arbitrary operating system commands through custom scripts. It carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 6.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating medium severity due to requirements for high privileges and user interaction.
Exploitation requires an attacker to possess privileged access to the MaxKB instance, after which they must trick a user into performing an action that triggers the vulnerable custom script functionality. Successful exploitation enables remote execution of OS commands on the host system, potentially granting high-impact confidentiality, integrity, and availability compromises, such as data exfiltration, system modification, or denial of service.
The vulnerability has been fully addressed in MaxKB version 1.9.0, as detailed in the GitHub security advisory (GHSA-76w2-2g72-cg85). Security practitioners should prioritize upgrading to v1.9.0 or later and review access controls for privileged users in RAG-based LLM deployments to prevent script-based command injection.
Details
- CWE(s)
Affected Products
AI Security Analysis
- AI Category
- Enterprise AI Assistants
- Risk Domain
- Other ATLAS/OWASP Terms
- OWASP Top 10 for LLMs 2025
- None mapped
- MITRE ATLAS Techniques
- None mapped
- Classification Reason
- MaxKB is an open-source knowledge base question-answering system explicitly based on large language models (LLM) and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), fitting the Enterprise AI Assistants category as it provides AI-driven Q&A capabilities typically used in enterprise settings.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
Why these techniques?
The RCE vulnerability enables privileged users to remotely execute arbitrary OS commands via custom scripts in the function library module, facilitating T1210 (Exploitation of Remote Services) and T1059 (Command and Scripting Interpreter).