CVE-2024-53349
Published: 21 March 2025
Summary
CVE-2024-53349 is a high-severity Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) vulnerability in Linuxfoundation Kuadrant. Its CVSS base score is 7.4 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 24.4th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-6 (Least Privilege).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Enforces least privilege to prevent privilege escalation by restricting service account token access through the insecure secretes component permissions.
Mandates enforcement of access control policies to block unauthorized access to service account tokens via insecure permissions in Kuadrant v0.11.3.
Ensures proper management of Kubernetes service accounts to limit token exposure and mitigate escalation risks from improper permissions.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Insecure permissions on Kubernetes secrets directly enable unauthorized access to service account tokens (T1552.001 Credentials In Files), which facilitates privilege escalation within the cluster (T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation).
NVD Description
Insecure permissions in kuadrant v0.11.3 allow attackers to gain access to the service account's token, leading to escalation of privileges via the secretes component in the k8s cluster
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2024-53349 involves insecure permissions in Kuadrant version 0.11.3, a CNCF project related to Kubernetes operators. The vulnerability affects the secretes component in a Kubernetes (k8s) cluster, enabling attackers to access the service account's token. This issue, linked to CWE-269 (Improper Privilege Management), was published on 2025-03-21 and carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.4 (AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N), indicating high confidentiality and integrity impacts.
The attack requires network access and high complexity but no privileges, user interaction, or scope changes. Remote attackers can exploit these insecure permissions to obtain the service account token, resulting in privilege escalation within the Kubernetes cluster.
Mitigation details are available in related advisories, including a GitHub Gist at https://gist.github.com/HouqiyuA/2a34c8f95dac7d9d8d7df7732403f383, the Kuadrant operator repository at https://github.com/Kuadrant/kuadrant-operator, and the CNCF Kuadrant project page at https://www.cncf.io/projects/kuadrant/.
Details
- CWE(s)