What is CVE-2024-6174?

CVE-2024-6174 is a high-severity vulnerability in Canonical Cloud-Init, classified under Improper Authentication. CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2025-06-26.

How severe is CVE-2024-6174?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.

Auth bypass in Canonical Cloud-Init

CVE-2024-6174

When a non-x86 platform is detected, cloud-init grants root access to a hardcoded url with a local IP address. To prevent this, cloud-init default configurations disable platform enumeration.

Vulnerability class: Broken Authentication

Published 2025-06-26 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (16.6th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 17th percentile — 16.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.003 · change: +0.000

Affected products

Canonical Cloud-Init — versions 0.7.9

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-287 — Improper Authentication

References

github.com/canonical/cloud-init/releases/tag/25.1.3 (Release Notes)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2024-6174?: CVE-2024-6174 is a high-severity vulnerability in Canonical Cloud-Init, classified under Improper Authentication. CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2025-06-26.
How severe is CVE-2024-6174?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.