CVE-2024-21888 is a high-severity privilege escalation vulnerability affecting Ivanti Connect Secure (ICS) and Ivanti Policy Secure products, specifically versions 9.1R18 and 22.6R2. The vulnerability resides in the web component of these products, allowing a user with limited privileges (PR:L - privileges required: low) to escalate their privileges to that of an administrator without requiring user interaction (UI:N). The vulnerability is classified under CWE-269, which relates to improper privilege management. The CVSS v3.0 base score of 8.8 reflects the critical impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, as an attacker gaining administrative privileges can fully control the affected system, potentially leading to unauthorized access to sensitive data, manipulation of security policies, and disruption of services. The vulnerability is remotely exploitable over the network (AV:N) with low attack complexity (AC:L), making it a significant risk. Although no known exploits are currently reported in the wild, the ease of exploitation and the critical nature of the affected systems make it a pressing concern. Ivanti ICS and Policy Secure are widely used in enterprise environments to provide secure remote access and policy enforcement, often serving as gateways for VPN and network access control. Compromise of these devices can lead to lateral movement within networks and exposure of critical infrastructure components.

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2024-21888 can be substantial. Ivanti ICS and Policy Secure products are commonly deployed in sectors requiring secure remote access, including finance, healthcare, government, and critical infrastructure. An attacker exploiting this vulnerability could gain administrative control over these security gateways, potentially bypassing network access controls and exposing sensitive personal data protected under GDPR. This could lead to data breaches, regulatory penalties, and reputational damage. Additionally, disruption or manipulation of access policies could impact business continuity and operational integrity. Given the high confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts, organizations relying on Ivanti ICS for remote access and policy enforcement face increased risk of targeted attacks, especially in environments with remote or hybrid work models prevalent across Europe.

To mitigate CVE-2024-21888, European organizations should prioritize the following actions: 1) Apply patches or updates from Ivanti as soon as they become available; since no patch links are currently provided, maintain close monitoring of Ivanti advisories. 2) Restrict administrative access to Ivanti ICS and Policy Secure interfaces to trusted IP addresses and implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) to reduce the risk of unauthorized privilege escalation. 3) Conduct thorough audits of user privileges and remove unnecessary low-privilege accounts that could be leveraged for exploitation. 4) Monitor logs and network traffic for unusual access patterns or privilege escalations related to these devices. 5) Employ network segmentation to isolate Ivanti ICS devices from critical internal networks, limiting the potential impact of a compromise. 6) Implement strict change management and incident response plans tailored to these devices to quickly detect and respond to exploitation attempts. 7) Consider deploying intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS) with signatures or heuristics targeting exploitation attempts of this vulnerability once available.