CVE-2024-28197: zitadel Privilege Escalation — Fix

Description

Zitadel is an open source identity management system. Zitadel uses a cookie to identify the user agent (browser) and its user sessions. Although the cookie was handled according to best practices, it was accessible on subdomains of the ZITADEL instance. An attacker could take advantage of this and provide a malicious link hosted on the subdomain to the user to gain access to the victim’s account in certain scenarios. A possible victim would need to login through the malicious link for this exploit to work. If the possible victim already had the cookie present, the attack would not succeed. The attack would further only be possible if there was an initial vulnerability on the subdomain. This could either be the attacker being able to control DNS or a XSS vulnerability in an application hosted on a subdomain. Versions 2.46.0, 2.45.1, and 2.44.3 have been patched. Zitadel recommends upgrading to the latest versions available in due course. Note that applying the patch will invalidate the current cookie and thus users will need to start a new session and existing sessions (user selection) will be empty. For self-hosted environments unable to upgrade to a patched version, prevent setting the following cookie name on subdomains of your Zitadel instance (e.g. within your WAF): `__Secure-zitadel-useragent`.

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CVSS v3.1 Score

7.5

HIGH

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

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-269 CWE-269

CWE-384 CWE-384

Affected Products

Vendor	Product	Versions
zitadel	zitadel	< 2.44.3
zitadel	zitadel	All
zitadel	zitadel	All
zitadel	zitadel	All
zitadel	zitadel	All

References

Advisories & Patches

https://github.com/zitadel/zitadel/security/advisories/GHSA-mq4x-r2w3-j7mr https://github.com/zitadel/zitadel/security/advisories/GHSA-mq4x-r2w3-j7mr

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2024-28197? +

Zitadel is an open source identity management system. Zitadel uses a cookie to identify the user agent (browser) and its user sessions. Although the cookie was handled according to best practices, it was accessible on subdomains of the ZITADEL instance. An attacker could take advantage of this and provide a malicious link hosted on the subdomain to the user to gain access to the victim’s account in certain scenarios. A possible victim would need to login through the malicious link for this exploit to work. If the possible victim already had the cookie present, the attack would not succeed. The attack would further only be possible if there was an initial vulnerability on the subdomain. This could either be the attacker being able to control DNS or a XSS vulnerability in an application hosted on a subdomain. Versions 2.46.0, 2.45.1, and 2.44.3 have been patched. Zitadel recommends upgrading to the latest versions available in due course. Note that applying the patch will invalidate the current cookie and thus users will need to start a new session and existing sessions (user selection) will be empty. For self-hosted environments unable to upgrade to a patched version, prevent setting the following cookie name on subdomains of your Zitadel instance (e.g. within your WAF): `__Secure-zitadel-useragent`. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH).

How severe is CVE-2024-28197? +

CVE-2024-28197 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.5 out of 10, rated HIGH. This is a high-severity vulnerability that should be prioritized for patching.

What products are affected by CVE-2024-28197? +

CVE-2024-28197 affects products from zitadel, specifically: zitadel. Check the affected products table above for specific version ranges.

How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2024-28197? +

You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

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