# GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h: MarbleRun unauthenticated recovery allows Coordinator impersonation

> Attackers can impersonate a Coordinator during recovery by crafting a sealed state, tricking clients into trusting a malicious manifest if they do not verify the root certificate.

- **Severity:** Not scored
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 4 Feb 2025
- **Also known as:** GO-2025-3450

## What is GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h?

GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h is an authentication bypass vulnerability in github.com/edgelesssys/marblerun, published on 4 Feb 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

### Impact

During recovery, a Coordinator only verifies that a given recovery key decrypts the sealed state, not if this key was provided by a party with access to one of the recovery keys defined in the manifest.
This allows an attacker to manually craft a sealed state using their own recovery keys, and a manifest that does not match the rest of the state.

If network traffic is redirected from the legitimate coordinator to the attacker's Coordinator, a remote party is susceptible to impersonation if they verify the Coordinator without comparing the root certificate of the Coordinator against a trusted reference.

Under these circumstances, an attacker can trick a remote party into trusting the malicious Coordinator by presenting a manifest that does not match the actual state of the deployment.

This issue does **not** affect the following:

* secrets and state of the legitimate Coordinator instances
* integrity of workloads
* certificates chaining back to the legitimate Coordinator root certificate

### Patches

The issue has been patched in [`v1.7.0`](https://github.com/edgelesssys/marblerun/releases/tag/v1.7.0).

### Workarounds

Connections that purely authenticate based on a known Coordinator's root certificate, e.g. the one retrieved when using the `marblerun manifest set` CLI command, are not affected.

## Which versions are affected by GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h?

3 open source packages ship an affected version, including github.com/edgelesssys/marblerun.


| Package | Ecosystem | Affected | Fixed in |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `github.com/edgelesssys/marblerun` | Go | All versions | 1.7.0 |
| `github.com/edgelesssys/marblerun` | Go | All versions | 1.7.0 |
| `github.com/edgelesssys/marblerun` | Go | All versions | 1.7.0 |

## How do I fix GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h?

Upgrade github.com/edgelesssys/marblerun to 1.7.0 or later.

## Is GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h is an authentication bypass vulnerability in github.com/edgelesssys/marblerun, published on 4 Feb 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected packages and fixed versions:
- github.com/edgelesssys/marblerun (Go): affected all versions; fixed in 1.7.0
- github.com/edgelesssys/marblerun (Go): affected all versions; fixed in 1.7.0
- github.com/edgelesssys/marblerun (Go): affected all versions; fixed in 1.7.0

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/GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h/index.md)
```

## Sources

- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/GHSA-w7wm-2425-7p2h/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.