Auth bypass in Apache Spark

CVE-2020-9480

In Apache Spark 2.4.5 and earlier, a standalone resource manager's master may be configured to require authentication (spark.authenticate) via a shared secret. When enabled, however, a specially-crafted RPC to the master can succeed in starting an application's resources on the Spark cluster, even without the shared key. This can be leveraged to execute shell commands on the host machine. This does not affect Spark clusters using other resource managers (YARN, Mesos, etc).

Vulnerability class: Broken Authentication

EPSS: 0.294 (98.1th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2020-9480?
CVE-2020-9480 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Apache Spark, classified under Missing Authentication for Critical Function. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2020-06-23.
How severe is CVE-2020-9480?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.
Is CVE-2020-9480 known to be exploited?
7 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.