Pax A930 FirmwareOperating system · Paxtechnology

CVE-2023-27199

MEDIUM · 6.7 CVSS v3.1 Published 2023-07-05
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
69/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
PAX Technology A930 PayDroid_7.1.1_Virgo_V04.5.02_20220722 allows attackers to compile a malicious shared library and use LD_PRELOAD to bypass authorization checks.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

The PAX Technology A930 payment terminal running PayDroid_7.1.1 contains a vulnerability where attackers can compile a malicious shared library and use the LD_PRELOAD environment variable to preload it, allowing bypass of authorization checks. This is a local privilege escalation/authorization bypass vulnerability affecting the embedded Linux-based payment terminal firmware.

MitigationDisable or restrict the LD_PRELOAD environment variable in the PayDroid system, implement strict seccomp/AppArmor policies to prevent preload hijacking, and apply vendor firmware updates to address the authorization bypass. Physical access controls should be enforced to prevent local attackers from loading malicious libraries.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Pax A930 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:= paydroid_7.1.1_virgo_v04.5.02_20220722

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
High
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Confirm device is a PAX A930 terminal
    Identify the payment terminal model through device information, labeling, or system queries
    Affected if Device is not a PAX A930 model
  2. Check the installed firmware version
    Retrieve the firmware version from the device and compare it exactly to paydroid_7.1.1_virgo_v04.5.02_20220722
    Affected if Firmware version is paydroid_7.1.1_virgo_v04.5.02_20220722
  3. Determine if LD_PRELOAD can be set
    Test whether the LD_PRELOAD environment variable can be defined and is honored by the dynamic linker when executing binaries
    Affected if LD_PRELOAD is functional and not restricted or disabled
  4. Assess local access exposure
    Evaluate whether an attacker could obtain local access to set environment variables and load malicious libraries
    Affected if Device is physically accessible to untrusted users
  5. Check if authorization relies on preloadable libraries
    Identify whether security-critical authorization logic uses shared libraries that could be intercepted via LD_PRELOAD
    Affected if Authorization mechanisms load vulnerable shared libraries

The environment is affected if it is a PAX A930 terminal running firmware paydroid_7.1.1_virgo_v04.5.02_20220722 where LD_PRELOAD remains functional and a local attacker can exploit it to bypass authorization checks.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Disable or restrict the LD_PRELOAD environment variable in the PayDroid system, implement strict seccomp/AppArmor policies to prevent preload hijacking, and apply vendor firmware updates to address the authorization bypass. Physical access controls should be enforced to prevent local attackers from loading malicious libraries.

Fix this in Pax A930 Firmware Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
20.0 hours of engineering $3,500
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-27199 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-27199 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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