Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Network-accessible Thrift RPC requiring only authenticated PR:L access; reads arbitrary daemon-readable files but causes no write or availability impact.
Primary rating from Vendor (apache).
CVSS VectorVendor: apache
Lifecycle Timeline
4DescriptionCVE.org
Description
Nimbus accepted the uploadedJarLocation argument of submitTopology / submitTopologyWithOpts as a server-side path and opened it directly, without checking that it referred to a file the caller had actually uploaded. The intended flow is that a client first calls beginFileUpload, which returns a path inside the Nimbus inbox, and uploads the jar in chunks to that location; nothing bound submission to that flow, and the uploaders map populated by beginFileUpload was never consulted at submit time.
An authenticated user with topology submission rights could therefore submit any path readable by the Nimbus daemon user as their topology jar. Nimbus copied the file into the topology's jar blob, and the blob ACL grants the submitting subject read access, so the contents could then be retrieved with the ordinary blob download RPCs. Candidate targets include the Nimbus Kerberos keytab, Thrift and UI TLS private keys, and storm.yaml with the ZooKeeper authentication payload. Possession of the Nimbus keytab turns an ordinary tenant into a cluster administrator.
In a deployment configured as the documentation recommends, submission is available to every authenticated principal when nimbus.users is unset, so no elevated privilege is required.
Mitigation
Upgrade to 3.1.0, where the submitted location is canonicalised and must resolve inside the Nimbus inbox.
Users who cannot upgrade immediately should restrict topology submission to trusted principals via nimbus.users or nimbus.groups, and should treat any file readable by the Nimbus daemon user as potentially exposed to submitters: rotate the Nimbus keytab and any TLS private keys or ZooKeeper credentials reachable from that account. Local mode is unaffected.
Credit
Independently reported to the Apache Storm PMC by n0mi1k, with a proof of concept.
Also found by the ASF using Claude agents to study the security of open-source projects, validated and reported by Apache Storm.
AnalysisAI
Authenticated topology submission in Apache Storm Nimbus 3.0.0 through 3.0.x allows any authenticated Storm user to read arbitrary files accessible to the Nimbus daemon by supplying a server-side path as the uploadedJarLocation argument to submitTopology or submitTopologyWithOpts, bypassing the intended beginFileUpload flow entirely. Nimbus copies the targeted file into a topology blob and automatically grants the submitter read access via blob ACLs, enabling retrieval of Kerberos keytabs, TLS private keys, and ZooKeeper credentials through standard blob download APIs. …
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Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata
Vulnerability AssessmentAI
| Exploitation | Exploitation requires a valid Storm authentication credential and topology submission rights. … Additional conditions and limiting factors are described in the full assessment. |
| Risk Assessment | The vendor CVSS of 6.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N) accurately characterizes the base attack profile - network-reachable over Thrift, low complexity, no special preconditions beyond authentication - but the SSVC rating of 'Technical Impact: partial' materially understates the real-world consequence: theft of the Nimbus Kerberos keytab allows impersonation of the Nimbus service principal and full cluster administrator takeover, far beyond partial confidentiality loss. … Full risk analysis with EPSS, KEV, and SSVC signal comparison available after sign-in. |
| Exploit Scenario | Full exploit scenario with step-by-step reproduction available after sign-in. |
| Remediation | Upgrade Apache Storm Nimbus to version 3.1.0, where the submitted jar location is canonicalized and validated to resolve inside the Nimbus inbox directory, eliminating the path traversal at the source. … Detailed patch versions, workarounds, and compensating controls in full report. |
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External POC / Exploit Code
Leaving vuln.today
EUVD-2026-77515
GHSA-5wqr-qcf5-76p8