Mohamed Sharaf
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F5 BIG-IP bug: patch and hide the admin page

A critical bug in the BIG-IP management interface is being exploited. It should never have been on the internet.

· 1 min read

Last week F5 disclosed a critical bug in the Traffic Management User Interface of BIG-IP (CVE-2020-5902), rated 10 out of 10. Over the US holiday weekend, exploit code appeared and attacks started.

BIG-IP load balancers sit in front of many banks’ and governments’ websites. The bug lets anyone who can reach the admin interface run commands.

  1. Update to a fixed version now, or apply F5’s mitigation if you can’t.
  2. Check for compromise if the interface was exposed.
  3. Make sure the management interface isn’t reachable from the internet. Thousands were.

The last point is the real lesson. Admin interfaces of network devices belong on a management network, never on the internet. That one rule would have saved most victims this weekend.

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