CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2018-3822 — Elastic X-Pack security vulnerability

Critical CVSS 9.8

X-Pack Security versions 6.2.0, 6.2.1, and 6.2.2 are vulnerable to a user impersonation attack via incorrect XML canonicalization and DOM traversal. An attacker might have been able to impersonate a legitimate user if the SAML Identity Provider allows for self registration with arbitrary identifiers and the attacker can register an account which an identifier that shares a suffix with a legitimate account. Both of those conditions must be true in order to exploit this flaw.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.8 (3.1)
Published
2018-03-30
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-287, CWE-22

Affected products

  • elastic / x-pack / 6.2.0
  • elastic / x-pack / 6.2.1
  • elastic / x-pack / 6.2.2

Matched remediation archetype

Authentication bypass and missing authentication

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Check exposure

  • Map every affected endpoint and protocol path, including alternate ports, legacy routes, recovery flows, service accounts, and machine-to-machine access.
  • Confirm which deployments enable the affected authentication mode and whether the interface is reachable from untrusted networks.
  • Review session, token, credential, and proxy trust configuration without attempting account takeover.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and centralize fail-closed authentication before protected request handling.
  • Remove default or embedded credentials, rotate affected secrets and sessions, and bind authentication decisions to the intended audience and channel.
  • Add negative tests for alternate routes, malformed or absent credentials, recovery flows, and proxy-derived identity.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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