In Karaf, JMX authentication takes place using JAAS and authorization takes place using ACL files. By default, only an "admin" can actually invoke on an MBean. However there is a vulnerability there for someone who is not an admin, but has a "viewer" role. In the 'etc/jmx.acl.cfg', such as role can call get*. It's possible to authenticate as a viewer role + invokes on the MLet getMBeansFromURL method, which goes off to a remote server to fetch the desired MBean, which is then registered in Karaf. At this point the attack fails as "viewer" doesn't have the permission to invoke on the MBean. Still, it could act as a SSRF style attack and also it essentially allows a "viewer" role to pollute the MBean registry, which is a kind of privilege escalation. The vulnerability is low as it's possible to add a ACL to limit access. Users should update to Apache Karaf 4.2.9 or newer.
CVE-2020-11980
This medium-severity CVE scores 6.3 under NVD CVSS v3. EPSS exploit-prediction score not yet available (the EPSS model rescores nightly; freshly-published CVEs typically appear within 48 hours). GitHub Security Advisory data not yet ingested — confidence will rise once GHSA publishes (typical lag: hours to days for open-source ecosystem CVEs; never for infrastructure-only CVEs).
- Lower severity and no public exploit yet
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 6.3
- EG Score
- 6.3(low)
- EPSS
- 77.1%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
June 12, 2020
Last Modified
November 21, 2024
References (2)
- security@apachehttp://karaf.apache.org/security/cve-2020-11980.txt
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108http://karaf.apache.org/security/cve-2020-11980.txt
Vendor Advisories for CVE-2020-11980(1)
These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.
Patch Availability(1)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fixed in / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| redhat | Karaf | 2020-12-16 | redhat |
Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.
Affected Packages
(1 across 1 ecosystem)
Maven(1)
| Package | Vulnerable range | Fixed in | Dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| org.apache.karaf.management:org.apache.karaf.management.server | 2.2.10 ... 4.2.8 (71 versions) | 4.2.9 | — |
Weakness Classification(1)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 11× in last 7d / 44× in last 30d)
Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.
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Frequently asked(5)
What is CVE-2020-11980?
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What is the CVSS score of CVE-2020-11980?
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