ghsa-qwgc-rr35-h4x9
Vulnerability from github
Published
2024-09-09 18:16
Modified
2024-09-18 18:44
Severity ?
8.3 (High) - CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:H
8.3 (High) - CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Summary
External Secrets Operator vulnerable to privilege escalation
Details

Details

The external-secrets has a deployment called default-external-secrets-cert-controller, which is bound with a same-name ClusterRole. This ClusterRole has "get/list" verbs of secrets resources(https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/blob/main/deploy/charts/external-secrets/templates/cert-controller-rbac.yaml#L49). It also has path/update verb of validatingwebhookconfigurations resources(https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/blob/main/deploy/charts/external-secrets/templates/cert-controller-rbac.yaml#L27). As a result, if a malicious user can access the worker node which has this deployment. he/she can: 1. For the "get/list secrets" permission, he/she can abuse the SA token of this deployment to retrieve or get ALL secrets in the whole cluster, including the cluster-admin secret if created. After that, he/she can abuse the cluster-admin secret to do whatever he/she likes to the whole cluster, resulting in a cluster-level privilege escalation.

  1. For the patch/update verb of validatingwebhookconfigurations, the malicious user can abuse these permissions to get sensitive data or lanuch DoS attacks:

For the privilege escalation attack, by updating/patching a Webhook to make it listen to Secret update operations, the attacker can capture and log all data from requests attempting to update Secrets. More specifically, when a Secret is updated, this Webhook sends the request data to the logging-service, which can then log the content of the Secret. This way, an attacker could indirectly gain access to the full contents of the Secret.

For the DoS attack, by updating/patching a Webhook, and making it deny all Pod create and update requests, the attacker can prevent any new Pods from being created or existing Pods from being updated, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) attack.

PoC

Please see the "Details" section

Impact

Privilege escalation

Show details on source website

To clipboard 

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Go",
        "name": "github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "0.10.2"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2024-45041"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cwe_ids": [
      "CWE-269",
      "CWE-732"
    ],
    "github_reviewed": true,
    "github_reviewed_at": "2024-09-09T18:16:22Z",
    "nvd_published_at": "2024-09-09T15:15:11Z",
    "severity": "HIGH"
  },
  "details": "### Details\nThe external-secrets has a deployment called default-external-secrets-cert-controller, which is bound with a same-name ClusterRole. This ClusterRole has \"get/list\" verbs of secrets resources(https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/blob/main/deploy/charts/external-secrets/templates/cert-controller-rbac.yaml#L49). It also has path/update verb of validatingwebhookconfigurations resources(https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/blob/main/deploy/charts/external-secrets/templates/cert-controller-rbac.yaml#L27). As a result, if a malicious user can access the worker node which has this deployment. he/she can:\n1. For the \"get/list secrets\" permission, he/she can abuse the SA token of this deployment to retrieve or get ALL secrets in the whole cluster, including the cluster-admin secret if created. After that, he/she can abuse the cluster-admin secret to do whatever he/she likes to the whole cluster, resulting in a cluster-level privilege escalation.\n\n2. For the patch/update verb of validatingwebhookconfigurations, the malicious user can abuse these permissions to get sensitive data or lanuch DoS attacks:\n\nFor the privilege escalation attack, by updating/patching a Webhook to make it listen to Secret update operations, the attacker can capture and log all data from requests attempting to update Secrets. More specifically, when a Secret is updated, this Webhook sends the request data to the logging-service, which can then log the content of the Secret. This way, an attacker could indirectly gain access to the full contents of the Secret.\n\nFor the DoS attack, by updating/patching a Webhook, and making it deny all Pod create and update requests, the attacker can prevent any new Pods from being created or existing Pods from being updated, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) attack.\n\n### PoC\nPlease see the \"Details\" section\n\n### Impact\nPrivilege escalation",
  "id": "GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9",
  "modified": "2024-09-18T18:44:47Z",
  "published": "2024-09-09T18:16:22Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/security/advisories/GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9"
    },
    {
      "type": "ADVISORY",
      "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-45041"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/commit/0368b9806f660fa6bc52cbbf3c6ccdb27c58bb35"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/commit/428a452fd2ad45935312f2c2c0d40bc37ce6e67c"
    },
    {
      "type": "PACKAGE",
      "url": "https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/blob/main/deploy/charts/external-secrets/templates/cert-controller-rbac.yaml#L27"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/blob/main/deploy/charts/external-secrets/templates/cert-controller-rbac.yaml#L49"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://pkg.go.dev/vuln/GO-2024-3126"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.4.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:H",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    },
    {
      "score": "CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N",
      "type": "CVSS_V4"
    }
  ],
  "summary": "External Secrets Operator vulnerable to privilege escalation"
}


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