Cleartext TransmissionWeakness · CWE-319

CVE-2024-9620

MEDIUM · 5.3 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-10-08
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
62/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

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 flaw was found in Event-Driven Automation (EDA) in Ansible Automation Platform (AAP), which lacks encryption of sensitive information. An attacker with network access could exploit this vulnerability by sniffing the plaintext data transmitted between the EDA and AAP. An attacker with system access could exploit this vulnerability by reading the plaintext data stored in EDA and AAP databases.

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 · moderate confidence

Event-Driven Automation (EDA) in Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) transmits and stores sensitive information without encryption, allowing attackers with network access to sniff plaintext data in transit between EDA and AAP components, and attackers with system access to read plaintext sensitive data directly from EDA and AAP databases.

MitigationEnable TLS/SSL encryption for all communications between EDA and AAP components, and implement encryption at rest for sensitive data stored in EDA and AAP databases to prevent unauthorized disclosure.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

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
Low
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/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 checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Verify EDA is deployed in your AAP environment
    Check for running eda-activation or eda-server processes, or review /etc/ansible/automation-platform/eda/ configuration directory. Also check if the EDA controller UI is accessible.
    Affected if EDA is installed and active without TLS encryption configured for its communications
  2. Confirm TLS/SSL is disabled for EDA-to-AAP traffic
    Inspect the EDA server configuration file (typically /etc/ansible/automation-platform/eda/settings.py or the API settings endpoint) for the SSL_CERT and SSL_KEY settings, or check if the EDA server is listening on plain HTTP (port 80) instead of HTTPS (port 443).
    Affected if EDA communicates with AAP controller over plain HTTP (no certs configured) or SSL settings are commented out
  3. Check if sensitive data in EDA is stored unencrypted
    Examine the EDA database configuration (usually PostgreSQL) to determine if encryption at rest is enabled. Look for 'encrypt' settings in database connection parameters, or verify the storage backend has encryption disabled.
    Affected if The EDA database has no encryption at rest enabled (e.g., no disk-level encryption, no database Transparent Data Encryption)
  4. Verify vault encryption is not applied to sensitive variables
    Review EDA rulebook files and variable files for use of ansible-vault or lookups. Check if sensitive values are stored as plaintext in the database rather than being retrieved from an encrypted vault source.
    Affected if Sensitive credentials are stored as plaintext in EDA configuration or rulebook variables without vault encryption

You are affected if EDA is deployed in your AAP environment and either TLS encryption for EDA-to-AAP communications is disabled or sensitive data in the EDA database is stored without encryption at rest.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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 data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Enable TLS/SSL encryption for all communications between EDA and AAP components, and implement encryption at rest for sensitive data stored in EDA and AAP databases to prevent unauthorized disclosure.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation6.0 h
  • Implementation16.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
32.0 hours of engineering $5,700
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Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-9620 — 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 sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2024-9620 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
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