CVE-2021-28131 Impala logs contain secrets
Authenticated attackers can hijack sessions by reading secrets from logs, enabling privilege escalation and bypassing authorization controls in Impala deployments.
- 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-2021-28131?
CVE-2021-28131 is a high-severity vulnerability in Apache Impala, published on 22 Jul 2021. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Impala sessions use a 16 byte secret to verify that the session is not being hijacked by another user. However, these secrets appear in the Impala logs, therefore Impala users with access to the logs can use another authenticated user's sessions with specially constructed requests. This means the attacker is able to execute statements for which they don't have the necessary privileges otherwise. Impala deployments with Apache Sentry or Apache Ranger authorization enabled may be vulnerable to privilege escalation if an authenticated attacker is able to hijack a session or query from another authenticated user with privileges not assigned to the attacker. Impala deployments with audit logging enabled may be vulnerable to incorrect audit logging as a user could undertake actions that were logged under the name of a different authenticated user. Constructing an attack requires a high degree of technical sophistication and access to the Impala system as an authenticated user. Mitigation: If an Impala deployment uses Apache Sentry, Apache Ranger or audit logging, then users should upgrade to a version of Impala with the fix for IMPALA-10600. The Impala 4.0 release includes this fix. This hides session secrets from the logs to eliminate the risk of any attack using this mechanism. In lieu of an upgrade, restricting access to logs that expose secrets will reduce the risk of an attack. Restricting access to the Impala deployment to trusted users will also reduce the risk of an attack. Log redaction techniques can be used to redact secrets from the logs.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-28131?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Apache Impala.
How do I fix CVE-2021-28131?
No fix has been published for CVE-2021-28131 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2021-28131 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-28131 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-2017-5640 Auth bypass in Apache Impala
- CVE-2026-57866 Apache Impala: Secrets Exfiltration via SSRF
- CVE-2026-65181 Apache Impala: RCE via External Data Source Class Loading
Sources
Also known as GHSA-h765-v877-jmq3.