CVE-2024-2700: Quarkus-Core Component Vulnerability - Local Environment Variables Capture and Risky Build-Time Inheritance

A vulnerability (CVE-2024-2700) was recently discovered in the quarkus-core component of Quarkus, a popular Java-based microservices development framework. This vulnerability is related to the capturing of local environment variables from the Quarkus namespace during the application's build process. As a result, the final built application could inherit these captured values, which may lead to dangerous behavior if the application does not override these values. This blog post will provide an in-depth analysis of this vulnerability, code examples, original references, and exploit details.

For example, consider this code snippet illustrating the usage of an environment variable in Quarkus

// In application.properties file
quarkus.datasource.username=${ENV.MY_DB_USER}

In this scenario, the application captures the environment variable MY_DB_USER from the local system during the build and injects it into the final application. In some cases, developers or CI environments might set up local environment variables with unintended consequences, such as dropping the database during the application startup or trusting all TLS certificates.

Exploit Details

The primary risk associated with this vulnerability is the potential for an attacker to make use of the unintentionally captured environment variables. This may enable the attacker to manipulate the application's behavior in potentially dangerous ways. For instance, accessing sensitive information, bypassing security mechanisms, or causing disruptions to the service.

It is important to note that this behavior is limited only to configuration properties in the quarkus.* namespace. Application-specific properties are not captured, which might help in limiting the attack surface.

Links to Original References

1. Quarkus CVE Database
2. CVE MITRE Entry - CVE-2024-2700

Conclusion

CVE-2024-2700 presents a significant vulnerability in the Quarkus framework, which can have serious implications for application security and reliability. Developers and security professionals should stay informed about this issue, review their implementations of Quarkus to ensure they do not fall foul of this weakness, and take appropriate steps to mitigate the risks. The importance of careful handling of environment variables, especially in the context of security-sensitive properties, cannot be overstated. As developers, it is vital that we prioritize the security of our applications, first and foremost.

Timeline

Published on: 04/04/2024 14:15:09 UTC
Last modified on: 04/17/2024 20:15:08 UTC