Image BuilderApplication · Kubernetes Sigs

CVE-2024-9486

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-10-15
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 0.1.38 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
A security issue was discovered in the Kubernetes Image Builder versions <= v0.1.37 where default credentials are enabled during the image build process. Virtual machine images built using the Proxmox provider do not disable these default credentials, and nodes using the resulting images may be accessible via these default credentials. The credentials can be used to gain root access. Kubernetes clusters are only affected if their nodes use VM images created via the Image Builder project with its Proxmox provider.

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-798

A password or key is baked into the source or binary, so anyone who obtains the code obtains the credential. These are trivially found once the software is distributed. Remediation means removing the secret, rotating it, and loading credentials from secured configuration at runtime.

General guidance for the hard-coded credentials 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
Image BuilderApplication
Affected:< 0.1.38

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:3.1/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 0.1.38 or later
Fixed in 0.1.38
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

v0.1.38

  1. Identify all Kubernetes node VM images built using Image Builder with the Proxmox provider at version < 0.1.38
  2. Upgrade Image Builder to version 0.1.38 or later: pip install --upgrade kubernetes-sigs/image-builder or download the release from https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/image-builder/releases
  3. Rebuild all affected VM images using the upgraded Image Builder version with the Proxmox provider
  4. Redeploy Kubernetes cluster nodes using the newly built images that have the fix
  5. Verify that default credentials are no longer present in the rebuilt images by attempting to authenticate with the previously known default credentials
  6. If immediate rebuild is not possible, implement alternative authentication controls (key-based auth, network segmentation) on existing nodes as a temporary mitigation

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

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $3,550. 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-2024-9486 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data