Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-51491

Notaryproject Notation-Go ≤ 1.3.0

Public PoC
Published
13 January 2025
Modified
05 September 2025
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 3.3
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
EPSS Score 0.0019 10th percentile
Risk Priority 28 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2024-51491 is a low-severity Improper Check or Handling of Exceptional Conditions (CWE-703) vulnerability in Notaryproject Notation-Go. Its CVSS base score is 3.3 (Low).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 10th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SC-24 (Fail in Known State) and SI-17 (Fail-safe Procedures) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

A10:2025 Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

notion-go is a collection of libraries for supporting sign and verify OCI artifacts. Based on Notary Project specifications. The issue was identified during Quarkslab's security audit on the Certificate Revocation List (CRL) based revocation check feature. After retrieving the CRL,…

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notation-go attempts to update the CRL cache using the os.Rename method. However, this operation may fail due to operating system-specific limitations, particularly when the source and destination paths are on different mount points. This failure could lead to an unexpected program termination. In method `crl.(*FileCache).Set`, a temporary file is created in the OS dedicated area (like /tmp for, usually, Linux/Unix). The file is written and then it is tried to move it to the dedicated `notation` cache directory thanks `os.Rename`. As specified in Go documentation, OS specific restriction may apply. When used with Linux OS, it is relying on rename syscall from the libc and as per the documentation, moving a file to a different mountpoint raises an EXDEV error, interpreted as Cross device link not permitted error. Some Linux distribution, like RedHat use a dedicated filesystem (tmpfs), mounted on a specific mountpoint (usually /tmp) for temporary files. When using such OS, revocation check based on CRL will repeatedly crash notation. As a result the signature verification process is aborted as process crashes. This issue has been addressed in version 1.3.0-rc.2 and all users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

CWE(s)
CWE-703

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
attack.mitre.org →
T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
attack.mitre.org →
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
attack.mitre.org →
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.
attack.mitre.org →
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
attack.mitre.org →
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-23332Same product: Notaryproject Notation-Go
CVE-2023-33957Same product: Notaryproject Notation-Go
CVE-2023-33958Same product: Notaryproject Notation-Go
CVE-2023-25656Same product: Notaryproject Notation-Go
CVE-2023-33959Same product: Notaryproject Notation-Go
CVE-2025-68135Shared CWE-703
CVE-2024-0092Shared CWE-703
CVE-2023-0004Shared CWE-703
CVE-2024-38482Shared CWE-703
CVE-2026-56338Shared CWE-703

Affected Assets

notaryproject
notation-go
1.3.0 · ≤ 1.3.0

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

SC-24 Fail in Known State good match

Enforces failure to a known state while preserving required properties, limiting impact of unhandled exceptions.

SI-17 Fail-safe Procedures good match

Mandates explicit fail-safe procedures triggered by indicated failures, structurally preventing unhandled exceptional conditions.

SA-8 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles partial match

Requires application of security engineering principles that include robust exception and error handling during design.

SI-11 Error Handling partial match

Requires generation of safe, actionable error messages that directly addresses proper handling of exceptional conditions.

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.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices explicitly require anticipating and correctly handling exceptional conditions during design and coding.

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.

A.6.8 Information security event reporting none match
none

Reporting of unhandled errors or exceptional conditions surfaces latent failure paths so they can be corrected before exploitation.

References