CVE-2024-52797: Searching Opencast may cause a denial of service
Impact First noticed in Opencast 13 and 14, Opencast's Elasticsearch integration may generate syntactically invalid Elasticsearch queries in relation to previously acceptable search queries. From Opencast version 11.4 and newer, Elasticsearch queries are retried a configurable number of times in the case of error to handle temporary losses of connection to Elasticsearch. These invalid queries would fail, causing the retry mechanism to begin requerying with the same syntactically invalid query immediately, in an infinite loop. This causes a massive increase in log size which can in some cases cause a denial of service due to disk exhaustion.
Patches Opencast 13.10 and Opencast 14.3 contain patches (https://github.com/opencast/opencast/pull/5150, and https://github.com/opencast/opencast/pull/5033) which address the base issue, with Opencast 16.7 containing changes which harmonize the search behaviour between the admin UI and external API. Users are strongly recommended to upgrade as soon as possible if running versions prior to 13.10 or 14.3. While the relevant endpoints require (by default) ROLEADMIN or ROLEAPISERIESVIEW, the problem queries are otherwise innocuous. This issue could be easily triggered by normal administrative work on an affected Opencast system. If you are running a version newer than 13.10 and 14.3 and seeing different results when searching in your admin UI vs your external API or LMS, upgrading to 16.7 should resolve the issue.
Workarounds None identified.
References Pull Requests - Preventing the infinite loop issue: https://github.com/opencast/opencast/pull/5150 - Sanitizing user input: https://github.com/opencast/opencast/pull/5033
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory: Open an issue in our issue tracker Email us at security@opencast.org
Credit Credit to Adilagha Aliyev of Graz University of Technology, Educational Technologies, adilagha.aliyev@gmail.com
Other sources
Opencast is free and open source software for automated video capture and distribution. First noticed in Opencast 13 and 14, Opencast's Elasticsearch integration may generate syntactically invalid Elasticsearch queries in relation to previously acceptable search queries. From Opencast version 11.4 and newer, Elasticsearch queries are retried a configurable number of times in the case of error to handle temporary losses of connection to Elasticsearch. These invalid queries would fail, causing the retry mechanism to begin requerying with the same syntactically invalid query immediately, in an infinite loop. This causes a massive increase in log size which can in some cases cause a denial of service due to disk exhaustion.
Opencast 13.10 and Opencast 14.3 contain patches which address the base issue, with Opencast 16.7 containing changes which harmonize the search behaviour between the admin UI and external API. Users are strongly recommended to upgrade as soon as possible if running versions prior to 13.10 or 14.3. While the relevant endpoints require (by default) ROLEADMIN or ROLEAPISERIESVIEW, the problem queries are otherwise innocuous. This issue could be easily triggered by normal administrative work on an affected Opencast system. Those who run a version newer than 13.10 and 14.3 and see different results when searching in their admin UI vs your external API or LMS, may resolve the issue by upgrading to 16.7. No known workarounds for the vulnerability are available.
— MITRE
Affected Software
Remediation
Patch Available
Patch Available
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the impact of CVE-2024-52797?
CVE-2024-52797 affects Opencast versions 11.4 and newer, leading to the generation of syntactically invalid Elasticsearch queries.
What versions are affected by CVE-2024-52797?
CVE-2024-52797 affects Opencast Elasticsearch integration starting from version 11.4 up to 16.6.
How do I fix CVE-2024-52797?
To resolve CVE-2024-52797, update the Opencast Elasticsearch implementation to version 13.10, 14.3, or any version above 16.6.
Is CVE-2024-52797 critical?
The severity of CVE-2024-52797 is considered significant, as it may disrupt search functionality within Opencast.
What areas of Opencast are impacted by CVE-2024-52797?
CVE-2024-52797 primarily impacts the Elasticsearch integration, affecting the search capabilities in Opencast.