CVE-2020-7218 in Nomad
Summary
by MITRE
HashiCorp Nomad and Nomad Enterprise before 0.10.3 allow unbounded resource usage.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/27/2024
HashiCorp Nomad and Nomad Enterprise versions prior to 0.10.3 contain a critical vulnerability that permits unbounded resource consumption within the orchestration platform. This vulnerability stems from insufficient resource limits enforcement mechanisms within the job scheduling and execution subsystems. The flaw allows malicious or compromised workloads to consume excessive CPU, memory, and disk resources without proper constraints, potentially leading to resource exhaustion across the entire cluster. The vulnerability affects the core resource management capabilities of Nomad's scheduler, which is designed to allocate and manage computational resources efficiently across distributed environments. Attackers can exploit this weakness by submitting jobs with improperly configured resource limits or by manipulating existing job definitions to bypass default constraints.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability resides in Nomad's job specification parsing and resource allocation logic where resource limits are not properly validated or enforced during job submission and execution phases. This represents a direct violation of the principle of least privilege and resource isolation that should be maintained in container orchestration platforms. The flaw specifically impacts the memory and CPU resource management components within Nomad's scheduler, where resource constraints defined in job specifications are not consistently enforced across all execution contexts. The vulnerability allows for resource consumption that can exceed the allocated limits by orders of magnitude, creating potential denial of service conditions for legitimate workloads.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple resource exhaustion to encompass broader system stability and security implications. When unbounded resource usage occurs, it can lead to cascading failures throughout the cluster as system resources become depleted and legitimate jobs cannot be scheduled or executed properly. This vulnerability directly affects Nomad's ability to maintain service level agreements and resource guarantees that organizations rely upon for mission-critical applications. The risk is particularly elevated in multi-tenant environments where multiple users or applications share the same Nomad cluster, as one malicious workload can compromise resources available to other legitimate users. Additionally, this vulnerability can be exploited as part of broader attack chains that may lead to privilege escalation or further system compromise.
Organizations should immediately upgrade to Nomad version 0.10.3 or later to address this vulnerability, as the patch implements proper resource limit enforcement mechanisms and validates job specifications against defined constraints. The mitigation strategy should include comprehensive monitoring of resource consumption patterns and implementation of additional controls such as resource quotas and namespace-level restrictions. Security teams should also conduct thorough audits of existing job specifications to identify any workloads that may be vulnerable to resource exhaustion attacks. This vulnerability aligns with CWE-770, which addresses allocation of resources without limits or throttling, and can be categorized under ATT&CK technique T1499.001 for resource hijacking and T1070.004 for indicator removal on host. Organizations should implement network segmentation and access controls to limit exposure and establish incident response procedures for detecting and mitigating resource exhaustion attacks.