🔴 Critical | Source: The Hacker News
Researchers have discovered over 36,000 server management interfaces (BMCs) exposed directly to the public internet, of which nearly 24,650 leak password hashes to anyone who connects — even before authentication is required. This is due to a known weakness in the IPMI protocol (CVE-2013-4786), which has been publicly documented for over a decade yet remains widely unpatched. An attacker who obtains these hashes can attempt to crack them offline and gain full out-of-band control of physical servers, bypassing all operating system and hypervisor-level security controls.
Security Architect’s Take: Audit your estate immediately for any BMC or IPMI interfaces reachable from the public internet or untrusted network segments — these should be isolated on dedicated out-of-band management networks with strict firewall rules. If IPMI cannot be disabled or network-isolated, enforce strong, unique passwords to slow offline cracking, and treat any exposed BMC as potentially compromised pending remediation.
Original advisory: 24,650 Internet-Exposed BMCs Disclose IPMI Password Hashes Before Login