CVE-2017-7517 in OpenShift Enterprise
Summary
by MITRE • 10/17/2022
An input validation vulnerability exists in Openshift Enterprise due to a 1:1 mapping of tenants in Hawkular Metrics and projects/namespaces in OpenShift. If a user creates a project called "MyProject", and then later deletes it another user can then create a project called "MyProject" and access the metrics stored from the original "MyProject" instance.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/14/2025
The vulnerability described in CVE-2017-7517 represents a critical tenant isolation flaw within Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise platforms that leverages the integration between Hawkular Metrics and OpenShift's project management system. This issue stems from a fundamental design oversight where the metrics system maintains a direct one-to-one mapping between tenant identifiers in Hawkular and project namespaces within OpenShift. When a project is deleted from the OpenShift environment, the corresponding tenant identifier in Hawkular Metrics remains available for reuse by subsequent users who create projects with identical names. This creates a persistent security gap where unauthorized users can gain access to metrics data that was originally associated with a different tenant, effectively enabling data leakage and cross-tenant information disclosure.
The technical exploitation of this vulnerability occurs through a simple yet effective process of project name reuse. When a user creates a project named "MyProject" in OpenShift, the system automatically provisions a corresponding tenant in Hawkular Metrics with the same identifier. Upon deletion of this project, the Hawkular tenant entry is not properly sanitized or invalidated, leaving the namespace available for immediate reuse. Subsequent users who create projects with the same name inadvertently gain access to all historical metrics data, configuration information, and potentially sensitive operational insights that were originally associated with the first tenant. This flaw directly violates fundamental security principles of isolation and access control that should prevent cross-tenant data leakage in multi-tenant environments.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data exposure to encompass potential business disruption and compliance violations. Organizations relying on OpenShift for multi-tenant deployments face significant risks as sensitive metrics data from different departments, business units, or customer environments can be accessed by unauthorized personnel. This vulnerability particularly affects industries with strict regulatory requirements such as financial services, healthcare, and government sectors where tenant isolation is mandatory. The implications include potential exposure of system performance metrics, resource utilization data, security event logs, and other operational insights that could provide attackers with valuable intelligence for targeting specific tenants or identifying system weaknesses.
This vulnerability aligns with CWE-200 (Information Exposure) and CWE-284 (Improper Access Control) classifications, representing a clear violation of proper access control mechanisms in multi-tenant systems. From an attack framework perspective, this issue maps to ATT&CK technique T1082 (System Information Discovery) and T1046 (Network Service Scanning) as attackers could leverage this weakness to enumerate and access unauthorized data. The flaw also demonstrates characteristics of privilege escalation through resource reuse, similar to techniques documented in ATT&CK's T1484 (Domain Policy Modification) and T1566 (Phishing) where attackers might exploit such gaps to gain unauthorized access to sensitive operational data. Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including enhanced tenant cleanup procedures, proper isolation mechanisms, and regular auditing of tenant identifiers to prevent unauthorized access to historical metrics data.