CVE-2021-45102 in HTCondor
Summary
by MITRE • 12/16/2021
An issue was discovered in HTCondor 9.0.x before 9.0.4 and 9.1.x before 9.1.2. When authenticating to an HTCondor daemon using a SciToken, a user may be granted authorizations beyond what the token should allow.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 12/18/2021
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2021-45102 represents a critical authorization flaw in HTCondor distributed computing software that affects versions prior to 9.0.4 and 9.1.2. This issue specifically manifests when users authenticate to HTCondor daemons using SciTokens, which are security tokens commonly employed in high-energy physics and other scientific computing environments. The flaw allows for privilege escalation where authenticated users can access resources and perform actions that exceed the permissions explicitly granted by their SciToken credentials. This represents a fundamental breakdown in the security model that undermines the trust model between users and the distributed computing infrastructure.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability stems from improper validation and enforcement of SciToken permissions within HTCondor's authentication system. When a user presents a SciToken to an HTCondor daemon, the system should strictly enforce the scopes and permissions encoded within the token. However, in affected versions, the authentication process fails to properly parse or validate these token attributes, leading to a situation where users may execute operations that should be restricted based on their token's authorization level. This misconfiguration creates a pathway for unauthorized access to computing resources, potentially allowing users to escalate privileges and access data or services beyond their intended scope.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple unauthorized access, creating significant risks for scientific computing environments that rely heavily on HTCondor for resource management. Organizations using HTCondor for large-scale distributed computing, particularly in fields such as particle physics, computational biology, and climate modeling, face potential data breaches and resource misuse. The vulnerability could enable malicious actors to gain access to sensitive research data, manipulate computational jobs, or consume excessive resources that could impact legitimate scientific workflows. Additionally, this flaw undermines the integrity of the entire distributed computing ecosystem by allowing unauthorized privilege escalation that could compromise the security posture of interconnected systems.
Security professionals should immediately implement mitigations including upgrading to HTCondor versions 9.0.4 or 9.1.2, which contain the necessary patches to address the SciToken authorization validation issues. Organizations should also conduct thorough audits of their HTCondor configurations to ensure proper token validation mechanisms are in place and regularly review access logs for any suspicious activities that might indicate exploitation attempts. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-284, which describes improper access control, and represents a specific instance of privilege escalation in distributed computing environments. From an ATT&CK perspective, this vulnerability maps to privilege escalation techniques and could be leveraged for lateral movement within computing clusters where HTCondor is deployed as a resource management system. Organizations should also consider implementing additional monitoring and logging controls around authentication events and token usage to detect potential exploitation attempts.