An unauthenticated remote attacker can bypass authentication and gain full access to administrative API endpoints in Nutanix Prism Element by including a crafted internal management HTTP header. The vulnerability is caused by a misconfiguration in the application’s authentication filters.
Consequently, the server responds with a Set-Cookie header containing a valid JSESSIONID. This session cookie decodes to a JSON Web Token (JWT) granting maximum cluster administrative privileges. Successful exploitation allows the attacker to execute root-level commands on all Controller VMs (CVMs) in the cluster, leading to complete cluster destruction and unauthorized access to VM memory and virtual disks.
