CVE-2017-10690 in Puppet Agent
Summary
by MITRE
In previous versions of Puppet Agent it was possible for the agent to retrieve facts from an environment that it was not classified to retrieve from. This was resolved in Puppet Agent 5.3.4, included in Puppet Enterprise 2017.3.4
If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 02/06/2023
The vulnerability described in CVE-2017-10690 represents a significant access control flaw within the Puppet Agent software ecosystem that allowed unauthorized information disclosure. This issue affected versions of Puppet Agent prior to 5.3.4, which was included in Puppet Enterprise 2017.3.4, and specifically targeted the agent's ability to properly enforce environment-based access restrictions when retrieving system facts. The flaw essentially permitted a compromised or misconfigured agent to bypass intended security boundaries and access factual data from environments to which it should not have had access.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from inadequate validation of environment permissions within the Puppet agent's fact retrieval mechanism. When a Puppet agent operates in a multi-environment configuration, it should only be able to access facts that are explicitly permitted within its assigned environment context. However, this vulnerability allowed the agent to traverse environment boundaries and obtain sensitive information that should have been restricted to specific environments. The flaw operates at the level of the agent's fact gathering subsystem, where it fails to properly verify whether the requested facts originate from an environment that the agent is authorized to access, creating a path for information leakage that violates fundamental security principles of least privilege.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple information disclosure to potentially enable more sophisticated attacks within managed environments. An attacker who could exploit this vulnerability could gain access to sensitive system information, configuration details, and operational data from other environments within the Puppet infrastructure. This could lead to reconnaissance activities that help attackers understand the broader infrastructure landscape, identify potential attack vectors, and plan more targeted exploitation efforts. The vulnerability essentially undermines the security isolation that environments are designed to provide, potentially allowing lateral movement between different security domains within the Puppet-managed infrastructure.
From a cybersecurity framework perspective, this vulnerability aligns with CWE-284, which addresses improper access control, and represents a clear violation of the principle of least privilege that is fundamental to secure system design. The issue also maps to several ATT&CK techniques including T1087.001 (Account Discovery) and T1580 (Web Shell), as unauthorized access to system facts could provide attackers with valuable reconnaissance data that would otherwise be restricted. The remediation approach required updating to Puppet Agent version 5.3.4 or later, which implemented proper environment boundary checking and access control enforcement. Organizations should have conducted immediate vulnerability assessments to identify affected systems and ensured proper patching across their Puppet infrastructure, while also reviewing their environment configurations to verify that access controls were properly implemented. The fix typically involved strengthening the agent's fact retrieval logic to include mandatory environment validation checks before returning any factual data, thereby restoring the intended security boundaries within the Puppet management framework.