CVE-2017-10690 : What You Need to Know

CVE-2017-10690, published on February 5, 2018, addresses a privilege escalation vulnerability in Puppet Enterprise and Puppet Agent.

Understanding CVE-2017-10690

What is CVE-2017-10690?

In older versions of Puppet Agent, there was a security flaw that allowed the agent to access unauthorized information from an environment. This vulnerability was resolved in Puppet Agent 5.3.4, which is included in Puppet Enterprise 2017.3.4.

The Impact of CVE-2017-10690

The vulnerability could potentially lead to privilege escalation, allowing unauthorized access to sensitive information.

Technical Details of CVE-2017-10690

Vulnerability Description

The flaw in Puppet Agent versions prior to 5.3.4 allowed agents to retrieve facts from environments they were not authorized to access.

Affected Systems and Versions

Puppet Enterprise 2017.3.x prior to 2017.3.4
Puppet Agent 5.x prior to 5.3.4

Exploitation Mechanism

Unauthorized access to environment information could be exploited by threat actors to escalate privileges and gain unauthorized access.

Mitigation and Prevention

Immediate Steps to Take

Update Puppet Agent to version 5.3.4 or later.
Upgrade Puppet Enterprise to version 2017.3.4 or higher.

Long-Term Security Practices

Regularly review and update access controls within Puppet configurations.
Conduct security audits to identify and remediate similar vulnerabilities.

Patching and Updates

Ensure timely installation of security patches and updates provided by Puppet to address known vulnerabilities.