CVE-2023-46748 — Big-Ip Access Policy Manager
HIGHCVE-2023-46748 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) SQL Injection vulnerability in f5 big-ip access policy manager. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-10-31) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
An authenticated SQL injection vulnerability exists in the BIG-IP Configuration utility which may allow an authenticated attacker with network access to the Configuration utility…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-10-31. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-11-21.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2023-46748.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2023-46748 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
An authenticated SQL injection vulnerability exists in the BIG-IP Configuration utility which
may allow an authenticated attacker with network access to the Configuration utility through the BIG-IP management port and/or self IP addresses to execute arbitrary system commands.
Note: Software versions which have reached End of Technical Support (EoTS) are not evaluated
Affected Products
big-ip access policy managerf5big-ip advanced firewall managerf5big-ip advanced web application firewallf5big-ip analyticsf5big-ip application acceleration managerf5big-ip application security managerf5Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every f5 big-ip access policy manager deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2023-46748 yet — track the f5 big-ip access policy manager advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Until you can upgrade, make sure every query built from user input uses parameterised statements or a prepared-statement API rather than string concatenation, and reduce the database account's privileges so an injected query cannot read or alter data beyond what the feature needs. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-46748 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.