CVE-2023-4612
Auth Bypass in Apereo Central Authentication Service ≤ 7.0.0
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HSummary
CVE-2023-4612 is a critical-severity Authentication Bypass by Assumed-Immutable Data (CWE-302) vulnerability in Apereo Central Authentication Service. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique External Remote Services (T1133); ranked in the top 42% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-54465
- 🇵🇱 CERT-PL: cert.pl
- 🇵🇱 CERT-PL: cert.pl
Vulnerability Data
Improper Authentication vulnerability in Apereo CAS in jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest.getRemoteAddr method allows Multi-Factor Authentication bypass.This issue affects CAS: through 7.0.0-RC7. It is unknown whether in new versions the issue will be fixed. For the date of publication there is no patch, and…
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the vendor does not treat it as a vulnerability.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 8 hardening rules · 5 OS baselines
V6.4.4V6.5.4V6.5.5V6.5.7
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.
Mandates unique identification and authentication of non-organizational users, directly mitigating improper authentication.
Detects unauthorized successful logons resulting from improper authentication implementations.
Documented procedures ensure personnel are trained on authentication mechanisms, tangibly lowering the risk of improper authentication being exploited.
Security awareness training instructs users on secure authentication practices and avoiding credential compromise.
Training on authentication mechanisms and best practices decreases the occurrence of improper authentication.
Non-repudiation requires strong authentication mechanisms to irrefutably attribute performed actions to specific individuals or processes.
Session content review can reveal authentication bypasses or failures in session establishment.
Review of authentication-related audit records can detect improper authentication mechanisms or bypasses.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Strong authentication mechanisms directly avoid reliance on attacker-controlled immutable data.
Protecting and verifying identity assertions prevents tampering with data assumed immutable during auth.
PR.AA-01 supplies and governs credentials/tokens that authentication relies on, removing some weak-credential cases, yet leaves verification logic, missing checks, and protocol flaws untouched.
PR.AA-02 ensures valid enrollment and unique credential binding, which reduces some improper-auth risks at issuance time but leaves runtime claim verification untouched, so each direction only partially addresses the other.
Least-privilege authorization policies reduce impact of bypassed authentication but do not address the root flaw.
PR.PS-01 can enforce auth-related settings via hardened baselines and default reviews, blocking some config-based instances of CWE-287, yet leaves code-level auth flaws untouched so neither direction reaches mostly.
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.
Requiring authentication methods whose strength matches the sensitivity of the data and mandating multi-factor authentication directly blocks attempts to access resources without proving identity.
Verifying user identity before issuing replacement credentials and forcing changes after compromise reduces the likelihood that authentication bypass can be achieved through stolen or weak credentials.
Security testing can discover and block authentication bypasses that rely on mutable data.
Access-control policy can mandate validation of all identity data, reducing reliance on assumed-immutable fields.
Identity-management processes can require verification of mutable attributes, mitigating the root cause.
Access-rights reviews can detect and revoke rights granted via tampered immutable data.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Oracle Linux 8 (1 rule)
- V-248827 OL 8 must not have the rsh-server package installed. prevents CWE-287
RHEL 7 (3 rules)
- V-204425 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must be configured so that the SSH daemon does not allow authentication using an empty password. prevents CWE-287
- V-204442 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must not have the rsh-server package installed. prevents CWE-287
- V-204424 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must not allow accounts configured with blank or null passwords. prevents CWE-287
RHEL 8 (1 rule)
- V-230492 RHEL 8 must not have the rsh-server package installed. prevents CWE-287
Ubuntu 22.04 (1 rule)
- V-260470 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, when booted, must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes. prevents CWE-287
Ubuntu 24.04 (2 rules)
- V-270675 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS when booted must require authentication upon booting into single-user and maintenance modes. prevents CWE-287
- V-270714 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS must not allow accounts configured in Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) with blank or null passwords. prevents CWE-287