CVE-2024-0114 is a vulnerability classified under CWE-1244 that affects the NVIDIA Hopper HGX 8-GPU platform's HGX Management Controller (HMC). The flaw allows an attacker who already has administrative privileges on the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) to escalate their access and gain administrative control over the HMC. The HMC is critical for managing the GPU cluster, and unauthorized control can lead to severe consequences including arbitrary code execution, denial of service (DoS), privilege escalation beyond the initial BMC access, unauthorized information disclosure, and tampering with data or system configurations. This vulnerability affects multiple versions of the HGX software stack, specifically versions HGX-22.10-1-rc57 through HGX-22.10-1-rc67. The CVSS v3.1 score is 8.1, indicating high severity, with an attack vector limited to local (AV:L), low attack complexity (AC:L), requiring high privileges (PR:H), no user interaction (UI:N), and scope changed (S:C). The impact on confidentiality is low, but integrity and availability impacts are high. No public exploits have been reported yet, but the vulnerability is significant given the critical role of the HMC in managing GPU resources in high-performance computing and AI workloads. The vulnerability requires administrative access to the BMC, which is typically restricted but could be compromised through other means, making this a potential lateral movement or privilege escalation vector within a data center environment.

The potential impact of CVE-2024-0114 is substantial for organizations utilizing NVIDIA Hopper HGX 8-GPU systems, especially in environments relying on high-performance computing, AI training, and data center GPU clusters. Successful exploitation could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code on the HMC, disrupt GPU management services causing denial of service, escalate privileges to gain broader control over the system, and tamper with sensitive data or configurations. This could lead to compromised AI workloads, data corruption, downtime, and potential leakage of proprietary or sensitive information. Given the critical nature of GPU clusters in AI research, cloud services, and enterprise data centers, the vulnerability could affect operational continuity and data integrity. The requirement for administrative BMC access limits the attack surface but also highlights the importance of securing management interfaces. Organizations with inadequate BMC access controls or those that share administrative credentials are at higher risk. The vulnerability could be leveraged as part of a multi-stage attack to gain deeper access into infrastructure.

To mitigate CVE-2024-0114, organizations should implement strict access controls on the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC), ensuring that only trusted administrators have access and that credentials are strong and regularly rotated. Network segmentation should isolate BMC interfaces from general network access, limiting exposure to potential attackers. Monitoring and logging of BMC and HMC administrative activities should be enhanced to detect suspicious behavior early. Organizations should apply any available patches or firmware updates from NVIDIA as soon as they are released to address this vulnerability. Additionally, employing multi-factor authentication (MFA) for BMC access can reduce the risk of credential compromise. Regular security audits and penetration testing focused on management controllers can help identify weaknesses. If patching is delayed, consider temporarily disabling or restricting HMC management features that are not essential. Finally, ensure that incident response plans include scenarios involving management controller compromise to minimize impact.