Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-45397

Auth Bypass in Dena H2O ≤ 2024-10-10

Published
11 October 2024
Modified
12 November 2024
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.9
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0044 37th percentile
Risk Priority 47 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2024-45397 is a medium-severity Improper Access Control (CWE-284) vulnerability in Dena H2O. Its CVSS base score is 5.9 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 37th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-4 (Information Flow Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

h2o is an HTTP server with support for HTTP/1.x, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3. When an HTTP request using TLS/1.3 early data on top of TCP Fast Open or QUIC 0-RTT packets is received and the IP-address-based access control is used, the…

more

access control does not detect and prohibit HTTP requests conveyed by packets with a spoofed source address. This behavior allows attackers on the network to execute HTTP requests from addresses that are otherwise rejected by the address-based access control. The vulnerability has been addressed in commit 15ed15a. Users may disable the use of TCP FastOpen and QUIC to mitigate the issue.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1548 Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may circumvent mechanisms designed to control privilege elevation to gain higher-level permissions.
T1021 Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may use [Valid Accounts](https://attack.
T1021.001 Remote Desktop Protocol Lateral Movement
Adversaries may use [Valid Accounts](https://attack.
T1021.002 SMB/Windows Admin Shares Lateral Movement
Adversaries may use [Valid Accounts](https://attack.
T1021.003 Distributed Component Object Model Lateral Movement
Adversaries may use [Valid Accounts](https://attack.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-61217Shared CWE-284, CWE-290
CVE-2025-21213Shared CWE-284
CVE-2024-41252Shared CWE-284
CVE-2025-27649Shared CWE-284
CVE-2024-45432Shared CWE-284
CVE-2026-21959Shared CWE-284
CVE-2024-23351Shared CWE-284
CVE-2024-41247Shared CWE-284
CVE-2026-35251Shared CWE-284
CVE-2025-29810Shared CWE-284

Affected Assets

dena
h2o
≤ 2024-10-10

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 11 hardening rules · 4 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V10.3.5
  • V6.4.3
  • V10.4.16
  • V10.5.1

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Directly enforces approved authorizations for logical access, stopping unauthorized actors from reaching resources.

Proper unique identification and authentication of users directly stops spoofing-based bypass of authentication.

Device identification and authentication before connection prevents spoofing of devices to bypass auth.

Authentication of non-organizational users blocks external spoofing attempts against the scheme.

Enforces flow-control policies that restrict information movement between subjects and objects.

Documents duties and assigns access so that no single account can bypass intended restrictions.

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.

PR.AA-04 full match
prevents

Protecting, conveying, and verifying identity assertions specifically prevents the spoofing that enables authentication bypass.

PR.AA-03 mostly match
prevents

Requiring authentication of users/services/hardware directly counters spoofing-based bypass when strong methods are used.

PR.AA-05 mostly match
prevents

PR.AA-05 directly enforces policy-based access management and least privilege, eliminating most improper-access-control defects, yet CWE-284 also covers implementation flaws and design gaps outside a single management control.

PR.PS-01 mostly match
prevents

Hardened baselines and deviation monitoring directly eliminate most configuration-induced access-control defects, yet CWE-284 also encompasses code-level and design flaws outside the scope of configuration management alone.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices catch most access-control defects during design/coding/testing (mostly), yet leave residual risk from runtime configuration, architecture, and operational controls (partial).

PR.AA-01 partial match
prevents

PR.AA-01 supplies managed identities/credentials that support but do not implement access-control decisions, so it only partially prevents CWE-284 in either direction.

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.

prevents

Defining and enforcing explicit access rights and restrictions for each entity directly stops the assignment of permissions that exceed what is required, eliminating the root condition that allows improper access control.

prevents

Formal authorization, role-based provisioning, and timely revocation of access rights directly stop the creation of accounts or permissions that exceed what the business actually needs.

prevents

By enforcing explicit rules on which identities or groups may perform read, write, delete or execute operations and by denying anonymous access to sensitive data, the control directly stops the creation of overly permissive or missing access-control checks.

degrades

Secure authentication control directly mitigates authentication bypass by spoofing.

prevents

Requiring one-to-one mapping of identities to entities and timely removal of unused identities directly stops attackers from leveraging stale or shared accounts to bypass access restrictions.

degrades

Authentication information management directly addresses credential handling that prevents spoofing.

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 (3 rules)
  • V-248827 OL 8 must not have the rsh-server package installed. prevents CWE-290
  • V-248597 There must be no "shosts.equiv" files on the OL 8 operating system. prevents CWE-284
  • V-248598 There must be no ".shosts" files on the OL 8 operating system. prevents CWE-284
Oracle Linux 9 (2 rules)
  • V-271758 OL 9 file systems must not contain .shosts files. prevents CWE-284
  • V-271757 OL 9 file systems must not contain shosts.equiv files. prevents CWE-284
RHEL 7 (3 rules)
  • V-204442 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must not have the rsh-server package installed. prevents CWE-290
  • V-204606 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must not contain .shosts files. prevents CWE-284
  • V-204607 The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system must not contain shosts.equiv files. prevents CWE-284
RHEL 8 (3 rules)
  • V-230492 RHEL 8 must not have the rsh-server package installed. prevents CWE-290
  • V-230283 There must be no shosts.equiv files on the RHEL 8 operating system. prevents CWE-284
  • V-230284 There must be no .shosts files on the RHEL 8 operating system. prevents CWE-284

References