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Privilege escalation vulnerability in Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters (CVSS 10)


regnor
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Not sure if this is a topic for Kubernetes Korner or Cyber Security Space.


Microsoft has found a security vulnerability in Azure Arc which allows attackers, if they find out the randomly generated DNS name, to elevate their privileges to those of a cluster administrator.
This has been given an impressive CVSS score of 10 from 10.

In additon Azure Stack Edge devices are also affected by this issue.

Azure Arc can be used to connect and manage Kubernetes clusters in different locations.
So with this vulnerability an attacker could gain control over the Kubernetes clusters.

Remediation

If you have auto-upgrade enabled (default), then you should already be safe.
If not, or if you want to check anyways, the following agent versions are protected agains this vulnerability, according to Microsoft:

  • 1.5.8 and above
  • 1.6.19 and above
  • 1.7.18 and above
  • 1.8.11 and above

For Azure Stack Edge, you must update to release 2209 (software version 2.2.2088.5593)

More information and a detailed description to check whether you're affected can be found here:

https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2022-37968

 

 

3 comments

Chris.Childerhose
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  • Veeam Legend, Veeam Vanguard
  • 8492 comments
  • October 13, 2022

To me it belongs here since it is security related.  Thanks for sharing.


Iams3le
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  • Veeam Legend
  • 1393 comments
  • October 13, 2022

Great share 👍


Geoff Burke
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  • Veeam Legend, Veeam Vanguard
  • 1318 comments
  • October 14, 2022

Yes, Azure Arc is a Microsoft only tool it would seem and also allows you to control physical servers and vm’s so better here even if the vulnerability only allows escalation on AKS cluster in my opinion. 

Interesting description of ARC here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-arc/overview


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