CVE-2024-31141

Apache Kafka Clients: Privilege escalation to filesystem read-access via automatic ConfigProvider

MEDIUM
6.5
CVSS Score
Published: November 19, 2024 at 08:40 AM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 07:27 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorKafka

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Severity
MEDIUM6.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 1%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

Files or Directories Accessible to External Parties, Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in Apache Kafka Clients. Apache Kafka Clients accept configuration data for customizing behavior, and includes ConfigProvider plugins in order to manipulate these configurations. Apache Kafka also provides FileConfigProvider, DirectoryConfigProvider, and EnvVarConfigProvider implementations which include the ability to read from disk or environment variables. In applications where Apache Kafka Clients configurations can be specified by an untrusted party, attackers may use these ConfigProviders to read arbitrary contents of the disk and environment variables. In particular, this flaw may be used in Apache Kafka Connect to escalate from REST API access to filesystem/environment access, which may be undesirable in certain environments, including SaaS products. This issue affects Apache Kafka Clients: from 2.3.0 through 3.5.2, 3.6.2, 3.7.0. Users with affected applications are recommended to upgrade kafka-clients to version >=3.8.0, and set the JVM system property "org.apache.kafka.automatic.config.providers=none". Users of Kafka Connect with one of the listed ConfigProvider implementations specified in their worker config are also recommended to add appropriate "allowlist.pattern" and "allowed.paths" to restrict their operation to appropriate bounds. For users of Kafka Clients or Kafka Connect in environments that trust users with disk and environment variable access, it is not recommended to set the system property. For users of the Kafka Broker, Kafka MirrorMaker 2.0, Kafka Streams, and Kafka command-line tools, it is not recommended to set the system property.

Affected

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

2.3.0 ≤ v ≤ 3.5.23.6.0 ≤ v ≤ 3.6.22.3.03.6.03.7.0

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

References (3)

Mailing ListThird Party Advisory
Source: af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/11/18/5
Third Party Advisory
Source: af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20250131-0001/

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

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

CVSS

6.5MEDIUMCISA-ADP
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
NONE
Availability
NONE
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
CWE-269CWE-552

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