# CVE-2021-3469: Missing authorization in Foreman

> Authenticated attackers can impersonate foreman-proxy to sign malicious certificates if Puppet CA SANs are explicitly enabled.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.4 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 3 Jun 2021
- **Updated:** 3 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-gfhf-42qr-7pgh

## What is CVE-2021-3469?

CVE-2021-3469 is a medium-severity missing authorization vulnerability in Theforeman Foreman, published on 3 Jun 2021. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Foreman versions before 2.3.4 and before 2.4.0 is affected by an improper authorization handling flaw. An authenticated attacker can impersonate the foreman-proxy if product enable the Puppet Certificate authority (CA) to sign certificate requests that have subject alternative names (SANs). Foreman do not enable SANs by default and `allow-authorization-extensions` is set to `false` unless user change `/etc/puppetlabs/puppetserver/conf.d/ca.conf` configuration explicitly.

Weakness: CWE-863 (Incorrect Authorization)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-3469?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Theforeman Foreman.

## How do I fix CVE-2021-3469?

No fix has been published for CVE-2021-3469 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2021-3469 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-3469 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Theforeman Foreman

- [CVE-2018-14643](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-14643/): smart_proxy_dynflow gem authentication bypass in Foreman remote execution feature (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2017-7505](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-7505/): Missing authorization in foreman (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2016-4475](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-4475/): Missing authorization in n/a (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2016-3728](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-3728/): Code injection in n/a (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2015-5246](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-5246/): Auth bypass in n/a (high 8.1)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2021-3469 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2021-3469 is a medium-severity missing authorization vulnerability in Theforeman Foreman, published on 3 Jun 2021. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-3469 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Theforeman Foreman. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-3469/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-3469/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-3469
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-3469
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-3469

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-3469/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.