CVE-2023-22651: Critical severity suse rancher vulnerability
Impact
A failure in the update logic of Rancher's admission Webhook may lead to the misconfiguration of the Webhook. This component enforces validation rules and security checks before resources are admitted into the Kubernetes cluster.
When the Webhook is operating in a degraded state, it no longer validates any resources, which may result in severe privilege escalations and data corruption.
The issue only affects users that upgrade from 2.6.x or 2.7.x to 2.7.2. Users that did a fresh install of 2.7.2 (and did not follow an upgrade path) are not affected.
The command below can be executed on the local cluster to determine whether the cluster is affected by this issue:
sh $ kubectl get validatingwebhookconfigurations.admissionregistration.k8s.io rancher.cattle.io
NAME WEBHOOKS AGE rancher.cattle.io 0 19h
If the resulting webhook quantity is 0, the Rancher instance is affected.
Patches
Patched versions include release 2.7.3 and later versions.
Workarounds
If you are affected and cannot update to a patched Rancher version, the recommended workaround is to manually reconfigure the Webhook with the script below. Please note that the script must be run from inside the local cluster or with a kubeconfig pointing to the local cluster which has admin permissions.
yaml #!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
function prereqs() { if ! [ -x "$(command -v kubectl)" ]; then echo "error: kubectl is not installed." >&2 exit 1 fi
if [[ -z "$(kubectl config view -o jsonpath='{.clusters[].cluster.server}')" ]]; then echo "error: No kubernetes cluster found on kubeconfig." >&2 exit 1 fi }
function restartdeployment(){ kubectl rollout restart deployment rancher-webhook -n cattle-system kubectl rollout status deployment rancher-webhook -n cattle-system --timeout=30s }
function workaround() { echo "Cluster: $(kubectl config view -o jsonpath='{.clusters[].cluster.server}')"
if ! kubectl get validatingwebhookconfigurations.admissionregistration.k8s.io rancher.cattle.io > /dev/null 2>&1; then echo "webhook rancher.cattle.io not found, restarting deployment:" restartdeployment
echo "waiting for webhook configuration" sleep 15s fi
local -i webhooks webhooks="$(kubectl get validatingwebhookconfigurations.admissionregistration.k8s.io rancher.cattle.io --no-headers | awk '{ print $2 }')"
if [ "${webhooks}" == "0" ]; then echo "Webhook misconfiguration status: Cluster is affected by CVE-2023-22651" echo "Running workaround:" kubectl delete validatingwebhookconfiguration rancher.cattle.io restartdeployment
ret=$? if [ $ret -eq 0 ]; then echo "Webhook restored, CVE-2023-22651 is fixed" else echo "error trying to restart deployment. try again in a few seconds." fi else echo "Webhook misconfiguration status: not present (skipping)" fi
echo "Done" }
function main() { prereqs workaround }
main
References - https://github.com/rancher/webhook/pull/216/commits/a4a498613b43a3ee93c5ab06742a3bc8adace45d
For more information If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Reach out to the SUSE Rancher Security team for security related inquiries. - Open an issue in the Rancher repository. - Verify our support matrix and product support lifecycle.
Other sources
Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in SUSE Rancher allows Privilege Escalation. A failure in the update logic of Rancher's admission Webhook may lead to the misconfiguration of the Webhook. This component enforces validation rules and security checks before resources are admitted into the Kubernetes cluster. The issue only affects users that upgrade from 2.6.x or 2.7.x to 2.7.2. Users that did a fresh install of 2.7.2 (and did not follow an upgrade path) are not affected.
Affected Software
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2023-22651?
CVE-2023-22651 is an Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in SUSE Rancher that allows Privilege Escalation.
What is the severity of CVE-2023-22651?
CVE-2023-22651 has a severity rating of 9.9 or critical.
How does CVE-2023-22651 affect SUSE Rancher?
CVE-2023-22651 affects SUSE Rancher versions 2.6.0 to 2.7.2.
How can the CVE-2023-22651 vulnerability be exploited?
The CVE-2023-22651 vulnerability can be exploited through a failure in the update logic of Rancher's admission Webhook which may lead to the misconfiguration of the Webhook.
Is there a fix available for CVE-2023-22651?
Yes, a fix is available. It is recommended to update SUSE Rancher to a version beyond 2.7.2.