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Improper Privilege ManagementWeakness · CWE-269

CVE-2024-33522

MEDIUM · 6.7 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-04-29
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
69/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
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
In vulnerable versions of Calico (v3.27.2 and below), Calico Enterprise (v3.19.0-1, v3.18.1, v3.17.3 and below), and Calico Cloud (v19.2.0 and below), an attacker who has local access to the Kubernetes node, can escalate their privileges by exploiting a vulnerability in the Calico CNI install binary. The issue arises from an incorrect SUID (Set User ID) bit configuration in the binary, combined with the ability to control the input binary, allowing an attacker to execute an arbitrary binary with elevated privileges.

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-269

Privileges are granted, or fail to be dropped, incorrectly, so an action runs with more power than it should. An attacker who reaches that path inherits the excess privilege. The fix is least-privilege throughout, with explicit, checked transitions whenever privilege changes.

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

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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
High
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/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
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

Calico v3.27.3 or later; Calico Enterprise v3.19.0-2, v3.18.2, v3.17.4 or later; Calico Cloud v19.2.1 or later

  1. Identify the Calico CNI install binary on affected nodes (typically located at /opt/cni/bin/ or similar installation paths)
  2. As a cluster administrator, remove the SUID bit from the Calico CNI binary if upgrading immediately is not feasible: chmod -s /path/to/calico-cni-binary
  3. Plan for upgrade to the fixed Calico release to receive the properly configured binary
  4. After upgrade, verify the binary permissions are correct (no SUID bit) using: ls -la /opt/cni/bin/calico*
Caveat Standard Calico upgrade procedures apply - review Calico upgrade documentation for your deployment pattern; ensure etcd or Kubernetes datastore compatibility before upgrading

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

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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-2024-33522 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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