Ansible TowerApplication · Redhat
CVE-2018-1101
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 · uneditedAnsible Tower before version 3.2.4 has a flaw in the management of system and organization administrators that allows for privilege escalation. System administrators that are members of organizations can have their passwords reset by organization administrators, allowing organization administrators access to the entire system.
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 · high confidenceAnsible Tower before 3.2.4 contains a privilege escalation flaw where organization administrators can reset passwords of system administrators who are members of their organization. Since password reset grants access to the account, organization administrators can gain full system-level access beyond their intended organizational scope.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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
Ansible TowerApplication
< 3.2.4
CloudformsApplication
= 4.5= 4.6CVSS 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
- High
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify Ansible Tower versionCheck the installed version of Ansible Tower. In the Tower UI, go to Settings > About, or use the API endpoint /api/v2/ping/ to retrieve version information. Compare the version number to the affected range: versions before 3.2.4 are vulnerable.Affected if The installed version is earlier than 3.2.4
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Verify existence of organization administratorsIn the Tower UI, navigate to Organizations and identify which organizations have users assigned the Organization Administrator role. Use the API endpoint /api/v2/organizations/ to list organizations and their associated administrators.Affected if Any organization has an Organization Administrator assigned
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Confirm system administrators are members of organizationsIdentify users with System Administrator privileges using /api/v2/users/. Check if these system administrators are also members of any organization by reviewing their organization memberships in /api/v2/users/{id}/. This membership is required for the vulnerability to be exploitable.Affected if System administrators are members of one or more organizations (rather than being excluded from all organizations)
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Test password reset capabilityAs an Organization Administrator, attempt to access the password reset function for a System Administrator who is a member of that organization. In the Tower UI, go to Users > select the System Administrator user > verify if password reset options are available to the Organization Administrator.Affected if Organization Administrators can view or trigger password reset for System Administrator accounts that belong to their organization
The environment is affected if Ansible Tower version is before 3.2.4 AND System Administrator accounts are members of organizations where Organization Administrators have password reset privileges.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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.
From vendor data3.2.4
Upgrade Ansible Tower to version 3.2.4 or later to address the improper privilege management. After upgrading, verify that organization administrators can no longer reset passwords of system administrators.
Fix this in Ansible Tower
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation8.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA3.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $5,408.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2018-1101 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2018-1101 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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