Skip to main content

Improper Access Control

CVE-2021-41194

Severity High
Score 9.8/10

Summary

FirstUseAuthenticator is a JupyterHub authenticator that helps new users set their password on their first login to JupyterHub. When JupyterHub is used with FirstUseAuthenticator, a vulnerability in versions prior to 1.0.0 allows unauthorized access to any user's account if `create_users=True` and the username is known or guessed. One may upgrade to version 1.0.0 or apply a patch manually to mitigate the vulnerability. For those who cannot upgrade, there is no complete workaround, but a partial mitigation exists. One can disable user creation with `c.FirstUseAuthenticator.create_users = False`, which will only allow login with fully normalized usernames for already existing users prior to jupyterhub-firstuserauthenticator 1.0.0. If any users have never logged in with their normalized username (i.e. lowercase), they will still be vulnerable until a patch or upgrade occurs.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • HIGH
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • HIGH
  • HIGH

CWE-284 - Improper Access Control

Listed 5th in the 'OWASP Top Ten', improper (or broken) access control attacks are a fundamental type of vulnerability. This includes a broad range of design flaws that enable users to act outside of their intended permissions. They can use these privileges to gain access to restricted files and functionality such as accessing restricted information, falsifying records, destroying data, or executing commands.

Advisory Timeline

  • Published