CVE-2017-5640 Auth bypass in Apache Impala
A malicious process can bypass authentication in Apache Impala when Kerberos is enabled without TLS, allowing unauthorized access to daemons.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2017-5640?
CVE-2017-5640 is a critical authentication bypass vulnerability in Apache Impala, published on 10 Jul 2017. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
It was noticed that a malicious process impersonating an Impala daemon in Apache Impala (incubating) 2.7.0 to 2.8.0 could cause Impala daemons to skip authentication checks when Kerberos is enabled (but TLS is not). If the malicious server responds with 'COMPLETE' before the SASL handshake has completed, the client will consider the handshake as completed even though no exchange of credentials has happened.
Weakness: CWE-287
Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-5640?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Apache Impala.
How do I fix CVE-2017-5640?
No fix has been published for CVE-2017-5640 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Upgrade, and rotate credentials and sessions that may have been exposed. More about Authentication bypass.
Is CVE-2017-5640 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-5640 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Apache Impala
- CVE-2026-56207 Apache Impala: SAML authentication bypass via forged bearer token
- CVE-2018-11792 Privilege escalation in Apache Impala
- CVE-2026-57866 Apache Impala: Secrets Exfiltration via SSRF
- CVE-2026-65181 Apache Impala: RCE via External Data Source Class Loading
- CVE-2021-28131 Impala logs contain secrets
Sources
Also known as GHSA-pprr-66x6-xjr8.