CVE-2023-46604

Public on

Last Modified: UTC

Description

A flaw was found in Apache ActiveMQ, specifically the OpenWire Module. This flaw may allow a remote malicious user to run arbitrary shell commands by manipulating serialized class types in the OpenWire protocol, causing the broker to instantiate any class on the classpath. This issue happens when OpenWire commands are unmarshalled, without validating the provided throwable class type, which could allow an attacker to jeopardize the entire server.

Statement

If the openwire protocol IS NOT in use, system operators can disable the OpenWire protocol which removes most risk of this vulnerability being exploited. If OpenWire IS being used, see the Mitigations section for potential options to reduce your attack surface.

  • How to determine if an AMQ 7 system is affected: Check in the broker.xml configuration file. Notice the presence of OPENWIRE in the following snippet which indicates a vulnerable configuration.
<acceptor name="artemis">tcp://localhost:####?tcpSendBufferSize=1048576;tcpReceiveBufferSize=1048576;protocols=CORE,AMQP,STOMP,HORNETQ,MQTT,**OPENWIRE**;useEpoll=true;amqpCredits=1000;amqpLowCredits=300;anycastPrefix=jms.queue.;multicastPrefix=jms.topic.</acceptor>
  • How to determine if an AMQ 7 for OpenShift system is affected: Get the ActivemqArtemis CR yaml and review the acceptor protocol and see if the following entry is present: (default, all, Openwire) which indicates the system is vulnerable.

  • How to determine if a Fuse 6 system is affected: By default Fuse 6 includes and enables ActiveMQ Broker. So unless this has been manually disabled, every Fuse 6 system is affected by this vulnerability.

  • How to determine if a Fuse 7 system is affected: Fuse 7 itself is not vulnerable. By default it ships the vulnerable activemq-client jar, however it does not instantiate an ActiveMQ broker. If this feature (connect to an external ActiveMQ Broker) were manually configured, it would make it vulnerable.

  • How to determine if a Fuse Online system is affected: Syndesis, an Integration Platform As A Service part of Fuse Online which runs on top of Openshift, does not use activemq code. Also, it doesn't instantiate a broker with Openwire protocol enabled, which makes it not vulnerable to this CVE.

Mitigation

In affected systems, it may be possible to mitigate some of the risks from this vulnerability. However this mitigation cannot eliminate all risks; the only complete resolution is to apply software updates. On systems where the broker is exposed to the public network, use firewall rules to restrict the transport ports and enable SSL to protect this "Transport".

Affected Packages and Issued Red Hat Security Errata

Products / Services Components State Errata
AMQ 6.3 openshift container image Fixed RHSA-2023:6877
AMQ Broker 7.10.5 Fixed RHSA-2023:6878
AMQ Broker 7.11.4 activemq-openwire Fixed RHSA-2023:6879
RHEL-7 based Middleware Containers jboss-amq-6/amq63-openshift Fixed RHSA-2023:6866
Red Hat Fuse 7.12.1 activemq-openwire Fixed RHSA-2023:7247
Red Hat Fuse/AMQ 6.3.20 activemq-openwire Fixed RHSA-2023:6849
Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works 6 activemq-openwire Out of support scope
Unless explicitly stated as not affected, all previous versions of packages in any minor update stream of a product listed here should be assumed vulnerable, although may not have been subject to full analysis.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authorities (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications ).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown Red Hat NVD
CVSS v3 Base Score 9.8 9.8
Attack Vector Network Network
Attack Complexity Low Low
Privileges Required None None
User Interaction None None
Scope Unchanged Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact High High
Integrity Impact High High
Availability Impact High High

CVSS v3 Vector

Red Hat CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Red Hat's CVSS v3 score or Impact different from other vendors?

For open source software shipped by multiple vendors, the CVSS base scores may vary for each vendor's version depending on the version they ship, how they ship it, the platform, and even how the software is compiled. This makes scoring of vulnerabilities difficult for third-party vulnerability databases such as NVD that only provide a single CVSS base score for each vulnerability. Red Hat scores reflect how a vulnerability affects our products specifically.

For more information, see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/762393.

My product is listed as "Under investigation" or "Affected", when will Red Hat release a fix for this vulnerability?

  • "Under investigation" doesn't necessarily mean that the product is affected by this vulnerability. It only means that our Analysis Team is still working on determining whether the product is affected and how it is affected.
  • "Affected" means that our Analysis Team has determined that this product is affected by this vulnerability and might release a fix to address this in the near future.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Will not fix"?

A "will not fix" status means that a fix for an affected product version is not planned or not possible due to complexity, which may create additional risk.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Upgrade to a supported product version that includes a fix for this vulnerability (recommended).
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.

What can I do if my product is listed as "Fix deferred"?

A deferred status means that a fix for an affected product version is not guaranteed due to higher-priority development work.

Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
  • Apply a mitigation (if one exists).
  • Open a This content is not included.support case to request a prioritization of releasing a fix for this vulnerability.
  • Red Hat Engineering focuses on addressing high-priority issues based on their complexity or limited lifecycle support. Therefore, lower-priority issues will not receive immediate fixes.

What is a mitigation?

A mitigation is an action that can be taken to reduce the impact of a security vulnerability, without deploying any fixes.

I have a Red Hat product but it is not in the above list, is it affected?

The listed products were found to include one or more of the components that this vulnerability affects. These products underwent a thorough evaluation to determine their affectedness by this vulnerability. Note that layered products (such as container-based offerings) that consume affected components from any of the products listed in this table may be affected and are not represented.

Why is my security scanner reporting my product as vulnerable to this vulnerability even though my product version is fixed or not affected?

In order to maintain code stability and compatibility, Red Hat usually does not rebase packages to entirely new versions. Instead, we backport fixes and new features to an older version of the package we distribute. This can result in some security scanners that only consider the package version to report the package as vulnerable. To avoid this, we suggest that you use an approved vulnerability scanner from our This content is not included.Red Hat Vulnerability Scanner Certification program.

My product is listed as "Out of Support Scope". What does this mean?

When a product is listed as "Out of Support Scope", it means a vulnerability with the impact level assigned to this CVE is no longer covered by its current support lifecycle phase. The product has been identified to contain the impacted component, but analysis to determine whether it is affected or not by this vulnerability was not performed. The product should be assumed to be affected. Customers are advised to apply any mitigation options documented on this page, consider removing or disabling the impacted component, or upgrade to a supported version of the product that has an update available.