Security Resilience

CVE-2023-33190

Auth Bypass in Sealos Project Sealos ≤ 4.2.1

Published
29 June 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 9.9
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0071 53th percentile
Risk Priority 69 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-33190 is a critical-severity Improper Authentication (CWE-287) vulnerability in Sealos Project Sealos. Its CVSS base score is 9.9 (Critical).

Operationally, ranked in the top 47% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Sealos is an open source cloud operating system distribution based on the Kubernetes kernel. In versions of Sealos prior to 4.2.1-rc4 an improper configuration of role based access control (RBAC) permissions resulted in an attacker being able to obtain cluster…

more

control permissions, which could control the entire cluster deployed with Sealos, as well as hundreds of pods and other resources within the cluster. This issue has been addressed in version 4.2.1-rc4. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-52518Shared CWE-287, CWE-863
CVE-2023-32220Shared CWE-287, CWE-863
CVE-2023-51405Shared CWE-287, CWE-863
CVE-2026-32173Shared CWE-287, CWE-863
CVE-2023-27388Shared CWE-287, CWE-863
CVE-2023-4242Shared CWE-287, CWE-863
CVE-2024-23255Shared CWE-287, CWE-863
CVE-2024-10173Shared CWE-287, CWE-863
CVE-2026-30863Shared CWE-287, CWE-863
CVE-2024-45216Shared CWE-287, CWE-863

Affected Assets

sealos project
sealos
4.2.1 · ≤ 4.2.1

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-287 CWE-863

Session content review can reveal authentication bypasses or failures in session establishment.

addresses: CWE-287 CWE-863

Assessments check authentication mechanisms for correct implementation and effectiveness, reducing successful authentication bypass attempts.

addresses: CWE-287 CWE-863

Identity providers centralize and enforce authentication mechanisms, reducing improper authentication.

addresses: CWE-863 CWE-287

Enforces correct authorization checks during the identifier assignment process.

addresses: CWE-287 CWE-863

Personnel screening, identity verification, and access-agreement requirements support reliable authentication and reduce authentication bypass opportunities.

addresses: CWE-287 CWE-863

Decoy authentication surfaces detect bypass attempts and deflect real credential attacks through observable malicious interactions.

addresses: CWE-863

Periodic review and update of procedures reduces incorrect authorization implementations over time.

addresses: CWE-863

Supervision identifies cases where authorization logic incorrectly permits unauthorized actions.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

blocks

Requiring consistency between access rights and classification plus formal approval steps ensures that the authorization logic correctly distinguishes between entities that should and should not be granted access.

blocks

Mandating segregated approval and oversight for non-human identities reduces the chance that weak or orphaned credentials can be exploited for unauthorized authentication.

blocks

A.5.17 directly mandates generation of non-guessable unique secrets, secure transmission, immediate change of defaults/temporary creds, strong password enforcement, no-reuse, and compromise response, which stops most improper-authentication exploits at source; the bounded remainder is non-password authentication methods and sufficiency-of-proof cases (e.g. IA-2/IA-5 enhancements) left to other controls.

blocks

A.5.18's provisioning, revocation, review and adjustment of access rights (incl. before role changes/termination, with segregation and owner approval) directly stops incorrect authorization decisions from being exploitable in the vast majority of cases; the bounded remainder is incorrectness inside the authorization logic itself (e.g. flawed conditional or missing check) rather than rights that were wrongly granted.

blocks

Security requirements specified early and verified through testing drive the consistent implementation of authentication mechanisms, decreasing the likelihood that authentication steps are omitted or incorrectly applied.

blocks

A.8.26 explicitly requires identifying and addressing authentication-related requirements (including level of trust in identity via 8.5 and 5.17) as part of application development or acquisition, which prevents a slice of CWE-287 but leaves the dominant sufficiency-of-proof aspects (IA-2/IA-5) and many implementation defects untouched.

Hardening callouts derived

DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.

  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-287, a class-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-295, CWE-306.
  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-863, a class-level weakness, and none of its children carries one either.

References