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Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2017-16613

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.0 Published 2017-11-21
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to after 2.15.1 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
An issue was discovered in middleware.py in OpenStack Swauth through 1.2.0 when used with OpenStack Swift through 2.15.1. The Swift object store and proxy server are saving (unhashed) tokens retrieved from the Swauth middleware authentication mechanism to a log file as part of a GET URI. This allows attackers to bypass authentication by inserting a token into an X-Auth-Token header of a new request. NOTE: github.com/openstack/swauth URLs do not mean that Swauth is maintained by an official OpenStack project team.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-287

The mechanism that verifies who a user is can be side-stepped or fooled, letting an attacker act as someone they're not. Everything built on top of that identity then becomes untrustworthy. Fixing it means hardening the full authentication flow, including edge cases, tokens, and secondary paths.

General guidance for the improper authentication class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 9.0
SwauthApplication
Affected:<= 1.2.0
SwiftApplication
Affected:<= 2.15.1

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to a release after 2.15.1
Vendor patch bugs.debian.org →
Recommended fix Moderate confidence

Upgrade to the latest maintained version of Swift (currently 2.x stable branches) and replace Swauth with a supported authentication middleware; no fixed version of Swauth exists as it is unmaintained

  1. 1. Identify whether Swauth is actively used in the environment, as it is an unmaintained community project.
  2. 2. If Swauth must remain in use, check the Debian bug report at https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=882314 for any available patches that hash tokens before logging.
  3. 3. If patches are unavailable or Swauth is replaceable, migrate to a supported authentication middleware for OpenStack Swift (such as keystoneauth or the built-in Swift authentication).
  4. 4. After migrating authentication, audit all log files to check for any exposed tokens that may have been previously logged.
  5. 5. Revoke and regenerate all authentication tokens that may have been exposed via log files.
  6. 6. Implement log sanitization to ensure tokens are never written to logs in future (e.g., configure log filtering).
Caveat Swauth is unmaintained and has no official fix; migration to alternative authentication (e.g., Keystone) may require configuration changes and user/client updates

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can identify the exact fixed release, upgrade, and verify it in staging — typical engagement from $2,300. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2017-16613 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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