.. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not
.. use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of
.. the License at
..
..   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
..
.. Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
.. distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
.. WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
.. License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under
.. the License.

.. _cve/2022-24706:

===========================================================
CVE-2022-24706: Apache CouchDB Remote Privilege Escalation
===========================================================

:Date: 25.04.2022

:Affected: 3.2.1 and below

:Severity: Critical

:Vendor: The Apache Software Foundation

Description
===========

An attacker can access an improperly secured default installation without
authenticating and gain admin privileges.

1. CouchDB opens a random network port, bound to all available interfaces
   in anticipation of clustered operation and/or runtime introspection. A
   utility process called `epmd` advertises that random port to the network.
   `epmd` itself listens on a fixed port.
2. CouchDB packaging previously chose a default `cookie` value for single-node
   as well as clustered installations. That cookie authenticates any
   communication between Erlang nodes.

The `CouchDB documentation has always made recommendations`_ for properly securing
an installation, but not all users follow the advice.

We recommend a firewall in front of all CouchDB installations. The full CouchDB api
is available on registered port `5984` and this is the only port that needs to be
exposed for a single-node install. Installations that do not expose the separate
distribution port to external access are not vulnerable.

Mitigation
==========

CouchDB :ref:`3.2.2 <release/3.2.2>` and onwards will refuse to start with
the former default erlang cookie value of `monster`. Installations that
upgrade to this versions are forced to choose a different value.

In addition, all binary packages have been updated to bind `epmd` as well
as the CouchDB distribution port to `127.0.0.1` and/or `::1` respectively.

Credit
======

This issue was identified by `Alex Vandiver`_.

.. _Alex Vandiver: mailto:alexmv@zulip.com
.. _CouchDB documentation has always made recommendations: https://docs.couchdb.org/en/stable/setup/cluster.html