Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls in OpenStack Keystone - CVE-2020-12689
Published: May 7, 2020 / Updated: October 6, 2021
Vulnerability identifier: #VU27603
CSH Severity: Medium
CVSS v4: 5.3 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
CVE-ID: CVE-2020-12689
CWE-ID: CWE-264
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vulnerability details
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to escalate privileges on the system.
The vulnerability exists due to application does not properly impose security restrictions, which leads to security restrictions bypass and privilege escalation. Any user authenticated within a limited scope (trust/oauth/application credential) can create an EC2 credential with an escalated permission, such as obtaining admin while the user is on a limited viewer role. This potentially allows a malicious user to act as the admin on a project another user has the admin role on, which can effectively grant that user global admin privileges.
Affected software
OpenStack Keystone
Red Hat OpenStack for IBM Power
Red Hat OpenStack
keystone (Debian package)
openstack-keystone (Red Hat package)
keystone (Ubuntu package)
python-keystone (Ubuntu package)
Ubuntu
Red Hat OpenStack for IBM Power
Red Hat OpenStack
keystone (Debian package)
openstack-keystone (Red Hat package)
keystone (Ubuntu package)
python-keystone (Ubuntu package)
Ubuntu
How to mitigate CVE-2020-12689
Install update from vendor's website.
keystone (Debian package) - update to 2:14.2.0-0+deb10u1
openstack-keystone (Red Hat package) - update to 13.0.4-3.el7ost
keystone (Ubuntu package) - update to 2:13.0.4-0ubuntu1
python-keystone (Ubuntu package) - update to 2:13.0.4-0ubuntu1
openstack-keystone (Red Hat package) - update to 13.0.4-3.el7ost
keystone (Ubuntu package) - update to 2:13.0.4-0ubuntu1
python-keystone (Ubuntu package) - update to 2:13.0.4-0ubuntu1