Mitel SIP Phones (6800/6900/6970 Series) Boot Process Argument Injection and Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2024-41710) Advisory

1. Vulnerability Overview & Root Cause

This vulnerability (CVE-2024-41710) is an argument injection vulnerability (CWE-88) existing in the boot process of Mitel 6800, 6900, 6900w Series SIP Phones, and 6970 Conference Units. The root cause is insufficient parameter sanitization of input values and configuration parameters processed during the device's boot sequence. This flaw allows an authenticated attacker with administrative privileges to inject malicious arguments that alter the behavior of system commands executed during startup.

2. Exploitation Mechanics & Attack Scenario

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must first obtain administrative access to the target Mitel device's web management interface or configuration profile server. The attacker then injects crafted arguments (containing command delimiters, hyphens, or shell metacharacters) into the configuration parameters or boot-time variables. When the device reboots or triggers its initialization sequence, the internal boot scripts execute system commands using these unsanitized parameters. This leads to argument injection, allowing the attacker to bypass restrictions and execute arbitrary OS commands within the context of the system.

3. Infrastructure & Business Impact

As this vulnerability is listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, it represents an active and severe threat. Successful exploitation allows complete compromise of the affected SIP phone. Attackers can use the compromised VoIP device as a persistent foothold inside the corporate network, conduct internal reconnaissance, intercept voice traffic, or enlist the devices into a botnet for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) campaigns.