CVE-2018-1841
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 · uneditedIBM Cloud Private 2.1.0 could allow a local user to obtain the CA Private Key due to it being world readable in boot/master node. IBM X-Force ID: 150901.
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 confidenceIBM Cloud Private 2.1.0 stores the Certificate Authority (CA) private key with world-readable file permissions (likely chmod 644 or similar) on boot/master nodes. This allows any local user on the system to read the CA private key, which can then be used to sign fraudulent certificates, impersonate services, or conduct man-in-the-middle attacks.
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= 2.1.0CVSS 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
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
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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Locate the CA private key fileOn boot/master nodes, find the CA private key file. In IBM Cloud Private, this is typically in the Kubernetes etcd data directory or a CA configuration directory (commonly under /var/lib/etcd or /opt/ibm/cluster). Use 'find / -name *ca*key* -type f 2>/dev/null' to locate it, or check your ICP documentation for the CA key path.Affected if The CA private key file exists on the system
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Check file permissions on the CA private keyRun 'ls -la <path_to_ca_key>' or 'stat <path_to_ca_key>' to view the file's permission mode. Look for the permission string (e.g., -rw-r--r--).Affected if The permissions show read access for 'other' (e.g., -rw-r--r--) or 'group' (e.g., -rw-r-----) indicating world or group readability
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Determine if non-root users can read the keyAs a non-root user (or using 'sudo -u nonrootuser'), attempt to read the CA private key file with 'cat <path_to_ca_key>' or 'head -1 <path_to_ca_key>'.Affected if The read operation succeeds for a non-privileged local user, confirming world-readable access
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Verify ownership matches expected privileged userCheck the file ownership from step 2 output. The owner should typically be root or a privileged service account, not a non-privileged user.Affected if The file is owned by a non-privileged user or ownership is incorrectly set
A user is affected if the CA private key file exists and has permissions (such as 644 or 640) that allow local non-privileged users to read its contents, enabling potential certificate forgery or man-in-the-middle attacks.
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 dataFix file permissions on the CA private key to restrict read access to root/privileged users only (chmod 600), then rotate the compromised CA key and re-issue all certificates signed by the exposed CA to prevent misuse of any previously exfiltrated key material.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2018-1841 — 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-2018-1841 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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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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