CVE-2023-23612

Issue with whitespace in JWT roles in OpenSearch

HIGH
8.8
CVSS Score
Published: January 24, 2023 at 08:36 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 05:37 AM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsOpensearchOpenSearch

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Severity
HIGH8.8
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.8%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

OpenSearch is an open source distributed and RESTful search engine. OpenSearch uses JWTs to store role claims obtained from the Identity Provider (IdP) when the authentication backend is SAML or OpenID Connect. There is an issue in how those claims are processed from the JWTs where the leading and trailing whitespace is trimmed, allowing users to potentially claim roles they are not assigned to if any role matches the whitespace-stripped version of the roles they are a member of. This issue is only present for authenticated users, and it requires either the existence of roles that match, not considering leading/trailing whitespace, or the ability for users to create said matching roles. In addition, the Identity Provider must allow leading and trailing spaces in role names. OpenSearch 1.0.0-1.3.7 and 2.0.0-2.4.1 are affected. Users are advised to upgrade to OpenSearch 1.3.8 or 2.5.0. There are no known workarounds for this issue.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

1.0.0 ≤ v < 1.3.82.0.0 ≤ v < 2.5.0
Affected range stops below 1.3.8, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 2.5.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
v < 1.3.8v < 2.5.0
Affected range stops below 1.3.8, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Affected range stops below 2.5.0, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
HIGH
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-287

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