Rapid7

vulnerability

Ubuntu: USN-6559-1 (CVE-2023-44981): ZooKeeper vulnerabilities

Severity
9
CVSS
(AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:N)
Published
Oct 11, 2023
Added
Jan 18, 2024
Modified
Apr 16, 2026

Description

Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key vulnerability in Apache ZooKeeper. If SASL Quorum Peer authentication is enabled in ZooKeeper (quorum.auth.enableSasl=true), the authorization is done by verifying that the instance part in SASL authentication ID is listed in zoo.cfg server list. The instance part in SASL auth ID is optional and if it's missing, like '[email protected]', the authorization check will be skipped. As a result an arbitrary endpoint could join the cluster and begin propagating counterfeit changes to the leader, essentially giving it complete read-write access to the data tree. Quorum Peer authentication is not enabled by default.

Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.9.1, 3.8.3, 3.7.2, which fixes the issue.

Alternately ensure the ensemble election/quorum communication is protected by a firewall as this will mitigate the issue.

See the documentation for more details on correct cluster administration.

Solutions

ubuntu-pro-upgrade-libzookeeper-javaubuntu-upgrade-libzookeeper-java
Title
Rapid7 Labs

2026 Global Threat Landscape Report

The predictive window has collapsed. Exploitation follows disclosure in days. See how attackers are accelerating and how to stay ahead.