CVE-2017-9792 Privilege escalation in Apache Impala

Medium 6.5 Published 3 Oct 2017 Updated 17 Sep 2024

A user with ALTER permissions can bypass authorization checks to read data from unauthorized Kudu tables by modifying table properties.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Any signed-in user
Attackable: Over the internet
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: None listed

What is CVE-2017-9792?

CVE-2017-9792 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Apache Impala, published on 3 Oct 2017. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

In Apache Impala (incubating) before 2.10.0, a malicious user with "ALTER" permissions on an Impala table can access any other Kudu table data by altering the table properties to make it "external" and then changing the underlying table mapping to point to other Kudu tables. This violates and works around the authorization requirement that creating a Kudu external table via Impala requires an "ALL" privilege at the server scope. This privilege requirement for "CREATE" commands is enforced to precisely avoid this scenario where a malicious user can change the underlying Kudu table mapping. The fix is to enforce the same privilege requirement for "ALTER" commands that would make existing non-external Kudu tables external.

Weakness: CWE-732

Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-9792?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Apache Impala.

How do I fix CVE-2017-9792?

No fix has been published for CVE-2017-9792 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

Is CVE-2017-9792 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-9792 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

Also known as GHSA-92jv-xphv-7f8c.