CVE-2021-20238: redhat openshift_container_platform Improper Authentication

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2021-20238 is a medium (CVSS 4.3) Improper Authentication vulnerability in redhat openshift_container_platform. EPSS estimates a 0.77% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 54.6% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 01-04-2022
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 03-08-2024
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

It was found in OpenShift Container Platform 4 that ignition config, served by the Machine Config Server, can be accessed externally from clusters without authentication. The MCS endpoint (port 22623) provides ignition configuration used for bootstrapping Nodes and can include some sensitive data, e.g. registry pull secrets. There are two scenarios where this data can be accessed. The first is on Baremetal, OpenStack, Ovirt, Vsphere and KubeVirt deployments which do not have a separate internal API endpoint and allow access from outside the cluster to port 22623 from the standard OpenShift API Virtual IP address. The second is on cloud deployments when using unsupported network plugins, which do not create iptables rules that prevent to port 22623. In this scenario, the ignition config is exposed to all pods within the cluster and cannot be accessed externally.

• CWE-287Improper AuthenticationWhen an actor claims to have a given identity, the product does not prove or insufficiently proves that the claim is correct.
• CWE-306Missing Authentication for Critical FunctionThe product does not perform any authentication for functionality that requires a provable user identity or consumes a significant amount of resources.