Privilege Escalation on Skylab IIoT Gateway (IGX)

The Skylab IGX IIoT Gateway allowed users to connect to it via a limited shell terminal (IGX). However, it was discovered that the process was running under root privileges. This allowed the attacker to read, write, and modify any file in the operating system by utilizing the limited shell file exec and download functions. By replacing the /etc/passwd file with a new root user entry, the attacker was able to breakout from the limited shell and login to a unrestricted shell with root access. With the root access, the attacker will be able take full control of the IIoT Gateway.