Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-31141

Medium

Published: 19 November 2024

Published
19 November 2024
Modified
15 July 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0016 36.1th percentile
Risk Priority 13 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2024-31141 is a medium-severity Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) vulnerability in Apache Kafka. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).

Operationally, ranked at the 36.1th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Files or Directories Accessible to External Parties, Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in Apache Kafka Clients. Apache Kafka Clients accept configuration data for customizing behavior, and includes ConfigProvider plugins in order to manipulate these configurations. Apache Kafka also provides FileConfigProvider, DirectoryConfigProvider,…

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and EnvVarConfigProvider implementations which include the ability to read from disk or environment variables. In applications where Apache Kafka Clients configurations can be specified by an untrusted party, attackers may use these ConfigProviders to read arbitrary contents of the disk and environment variables. In particular, this flaw may be used in Apache Kafka Connect to escalate from REST API access to filesystem/environment access, which may be undesirable in certain environments, including SaaS products. This issue affects Apache Kafka Clients: from 2.3.0 through 3.5.2, 3.6.2, 3.7.0. Users with affected applications are recommended to upgrade kafka-clients to version >=3.8.0, and set the JVM system property "org.apache.kafka.automatic.config.providers=none". Users of Kafka Connect with one of the listed ConfigProvider implementations specified in their worker config are also recommended to add appropriate "allowlist.pattern" and "allowed.paths" to restrict their operation to appropriate bounds. For users of Kafka Clients or Kafka Connect in environments that trust users with disk and environment variable access, it is not recommended to set the system property. For users of the Kafka Broker, Kafka MirrorMaker 2.0, Kafka Streams, and Kafka command-line tools, it is not recommended to set the system property.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

apache
kafka
3.7.0 · 2.3.0 — 3.5.2 · 3.6.0 — 3.6.2

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-269

Policy addresses roles, responsibilities, and privilege management to prevent improper privilege assignments.

addresses: CWE-269

Access supervision ensures privileges are assigned and managed without improper escalation or retention.

addresses: CWE-269

Assigning group/role memberships and access authorizations (privileges) while reviewing accounts addresses improper privilege management.

addresses: CWE-552

Controls on authorized publication limit files and directories with nonpublic data from becoming accessible to external parties.

addresses: CWE-269

Enforces proper privilege management by requiring all decisions through the verified reference monitor.

addresses: CWE-269

By mandating division of duties across roles, the control enforces proper privilege management and prevents a single entity from controlling an entire sensitive process.

addresses: CWE-269

Implements core proper privilege management by restricting to only required rights.

addresses: CWE-269

Policy requires training on privilege management and least privilege, making it harder to exploit improper privilege management weaknesses.

References