CVE-2021-21411 Vulnerability Analysis & Exploit Details

CVE-2021-21411
Vulnerability Scoring

5.5
/10
Significant Risk

Security assessments indicate that CVE-2021-21411 presents a notable risk, potentially requiring prompt mitigation.

Attack Complexity Details

  • Attack Complexity: Low
    Exploits can be performed without significant complexity or special conditions.
  • Attack Vector: Network
    Vulnerability is exploitable over a network without physical access.
  • Privileges Required: High
    High-level privileges are required for exploitation.
  • Scope: Changed
    Successful exploitation can impact components beyond the vulnerable component.
  • User Interaction: None
    No user interaction is necessary for exploitation.

CVE-2021-21411 Details

Status: Modified

Last updated: 🕠 21 Nov 2024, 05:48 UTC
Originally published on: 🕘 26 Mar 2021, 21:15 UTC

Time between publication and last update: 1335 days

CVSS Release: version 3

CVSS3 Source

security-advisories@github.com

CVSS3 Type

Secondary

CVSS3 Vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

CVE-2021-21411 Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2021-21411: OAuth2-Proxy is an open source reverse proxy that provides authentication with Google, Github or other providers. The `--gitlab-group` flag for group-based authorization in the GitLab provider stopped working in the v7.0.0 release. Regardless of the flag settings, authorization wasn't restricted. Additionally, any authenticated users had whichever groups were set in `--gitlab-group` added to the new `X-Forwarded-Groups` header to the upstream application. While adding GitLab project based authorization support in #630, a bug was introduced where the user session's groups field was populated with the `--gitlab-group` config entries instead of pulling the individual user's group membership from the GitLab Userinfo endpoint. When the session groups where compared against the allowed groups for authorization, they matched improperly (since both lists were populated with the same data) so authorization was allowed. This impacts GitLab Provider users who relies on group membership for authorization restrictions. Any authenticated users in your GitLab environment can access your applications regardless of `--gitlab-group` membership restrictions. This is patched in v7.1.0. There is no workaround for the Group membership bug. But `--gitlab-project` can be set to use Project membership as the authorization checks instead of groups; it is not broken.

Assessing the Risk of CVE-2021-21411

Access Complexity Graph

The exploitability of CVE-2021-21411 depends on two key factors: attack complexity (the level of effort required to execute an exploit) and privileges required (the access level an attacker needs).

Exploitability Analysis for CVE-2021-21411

The exploitability of CVE-2021-21411 is influenced by multiple factors. Security teams should analyze system configurations and apply appropriate countermeasures to mitigate threats.

Understanding AC and PR

A lower complexity and fewer privilege requirements make exploitation easier. Security teams should evaluate these aspects to determine the urgency of mitigation strategies, such as patch management and access control policies.

Attack Complexity (AC) measures the difficulty in executing an exploit. A high AC means that specific conditions must be met, making an attack more challenging, while a low AC means the vulnerability can be exploited with minimal effort.

Privileges Required (PR) determine the level of system access necessary for an attack. Vulnerabilities requiring no privileges are more accessible to attackers, whereas high privilege requirements limit exploitation to authorized users with elevated access.

CVSS Score Breakdown Chart

Above is the CVSS Sub-score Breakdown for CVE-2021-21411, illustrating how Base, Impact, and Exploitability factors combine to form the overall severity rating. A higher sub-score typically indicates a more severe or easier-to-exploit vulnerability.

CIA Impact Analysis

Below is the Impact Analysis for CVE-2021-21411, showing how Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability might be affected if the vulnerability is exploited. Higher values usually signal greater potential damage.

  • Confidentiality: Low
    CVE-2021-21411 could lead to minor leaks of non-critical information without major privacy breaches.
  • Integrity: Low
    Exploiting CVE-2021-21411 may cause minor changes to data without severely impacting its accuracy.
  • Availability: None
    CVE-2021-21411 does not impact system availability.

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

The EPSS score estimates the probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the near future.

EPSS Score: 0.077% (probability of exploit)

EPSS Percentile: 36.58% (lower percentile = lower relative risk)
This vulnerability is less risky than approximately 63.42% of others.

CVE-2021-21411 References

External References

CWE Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-863

Vulnerable Configurations

  • cpe:2.3:a:oauth2_proxy_project:oauth2_proxy:7.0.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:oauth2_proxy_project:oauth2_proxy:7.0.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
  • cpe:2.3:a:oauth2_proxy_project:oauth2_proxy:7.0.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
    cpe:2.3:a:oauth2_proxy_project:oauth2_proxy:7.0.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

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