Affected: NetworkManager-libreswan, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7 Advanced Update Support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extended Lifecycle Support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Advanced Update Support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Telecommunications Update Service, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Update Services for SAP Solutions, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Telecommunications Update Service and 7 more

A flaw was found in the libreswan client plugin for NetworkManager (NetkworkManager-libreswan), where it fails to properly sanitize the VPN configuration from the local unprivileged user. In this configuration, composed by a key-value format, the plugin fails to escape special characters, leading the application to interpret values as keys. One of the most critical parameters that could be abused by a malicious user is the `leftupdown`key. This key takes an executable command as a value and is used to specify what executes as a callback in NetworkManager-libreswan to retrieve configuration settings back to NetworkManager. As NetworkManager uses Polkit to allow an unprivileged user to control the system's network configuration, a malicious actor could achieve local privilege escalation and potential code execution as root in the targeted machine by creating a malicious configuration.