Excessive Permissions in Submariner Operator Role Enable MITM Attacks

Executive Summary

This vulnerability is in the submariner-operator component of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes. It involves excessive permissions granted to the submariner-k8s-broker-cluster Role assigned to joined clusters. A compromised cluster can overwrite endpoint information for other clusters, allowing an attacker to redirect inter-cluster tunnel traffic and perform a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack across the entire cluster mesh.

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Detection Guidance

Check for unauthorized modifications to Endpoint Custom Resources (CRs) in the broker namespace using kubectl commands like kubectl get endpoints -n <broker-namespace> or kubectl get endpointslices -n <broker-namespace>. Monitor for unexpected changes in network traffic patterns or tunnel connections between clusters.

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Impact Analysis

If exploited, this vulnerability allows an attacker to intercept, modify, or redirect network traffic between clusters. This could lead to unauthorized access to sensitive data, disruption of services, or further attacks within the cluster environment. The high CVSS score of 9.9 indicates significant potential impact.

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Compliance Impact

This vulnerability could lead to unauthorized access or exposure of sensitive data during transmission between clusters, violating confidentiality requirements in GDPR and HIPAA. Compliance may be compromised if data breaches occur due to MITM attacks exploiting this flaw.

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Mitigation Strategies

No immediate mitigation is available per Red Hat's criteria. Users should monitor for official patches or updates from Red Hat and consider upgrading to supported versions if available. Avoid deploying vulnerable configurations and restrict access to the submariner-k8s-broker-cluster Role until a fix is released.

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