Security Bulletin: Security vulnerability in Apache Kafka clients affects IBM Business Automation Workflow Case Event Emitters – CVE-2024-31141

IBM Business Automation Workflow Case Event Emitters package a vulnerable version of Apache Kafka clients.

## Vulnerability Details

**CVEID:**CVE-2024-31141
**DESCRIPTION:** Files or Directories Accessible to External Parties, Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in Apache Kafka Clients. Apache Kafka Clients accept configuration data for customizing behavior, and includes ConfigProvider plugins in order to manipulate these configurations. Apache Kafka also provides FileConfigProvider, DirectoryConfigProvider, and EnvVarConfigProvider implementations which include the ability to read from disk or environment variables. In applications where Apache Kafka Clients configurations can be specified by an untrusted party, attackers may use these ConfigProviders to read arbitrary contents of the disk and environment variables. In particular, this flaw may be used in Apache Kafka Connect to escalate from REST API access to filesystem/environment access, which may be undesirable in certain environments, including SaaS products. This issue affects Apache Kafka Clients: from 2.3.0 through 3.5.2, 3.6.2, 3.7.0. Users with affected applications are recommended to upgrade kafka-clients to version >=3.8.0, and set the JVM system property “org.apache.kafka.automatic.config.providers=none”. Users of Kafka Connect with one of the listed ConfigProvider implementations specified in their worker config are also recommended to add appropriate “allowlist.pattern” and “allowed.paths” to restrict their operation to appropriate bounds. For users of Kafka Clients or Kafka Connect in environments that trust users with disk and environment variable access, it is not recommended to set the system property. For users of the Kafka Broker, Kafka MirrorMaker 2.0, Kafka Streams, and Kafka command-line tools, it is not recommended to set the system property.
**CWE:**CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management
**CVSS Source:** IBM X-Force
**CVSS Base score:** 6.8
**CVSS Vector:**(CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N)

## Affected Products and Versions

Affected Product(s)| Version(s)| Status
—|—|—
IBM Business Automation Workflow containers| V24.0.1
V24.0.0 – V24.0.0-I004
earlier unsupported versions | affected
IBM Business Automation Workflow traditional and IBM Business Automation Workflow Enterprise Service Bus| V24.0.1
V24.0.0
earlier unsupported versions| affected

For earlier and unsupported versions of the products, IBM recommends upgrading to a fixed, supported version of the product.

## Remediation/Fixes

The recommended solution is to apply the Interim Fix (iFix) or Cumulative Fix (CF) containing APAR DT418407 as soon as practical.

Affected Product(s)| Version(s)| Remediation / Fix
—|—|—
IBM Business Automation Workflow containers| V24.0.0| Apply 24.0.1-IF001
IBM Business Automation Workflow containers| V24.0.0 – V24.0.0-IF004| Apply 24.0.0-IF005
or upgrade to 24.0.1-IF001 or later
IBM Business Automation Workflow containers| V23.0.1
V22.0.1 – V22.0.2
V21.0.1 – V21.0.2
V20.0.0.1 – V20.0.0.2| Upgrade to 24.0.0-IF005
or upgrade to 24.0.1-IF001 or later
IBM Business Automation Workflow traditional and IBM Business Automation Workflow Enterprise Service Bus| V24.0.1
V24.0.0| Apply DT418407
IBM Business Automation Workflow traditional| earlier unsupported versions | Upgrade to a long term support release or the latest SSCD version. See IBM Business Automation Workflow and IBM Integration Designer Software Support Lifecycle Addendum

## Workarounds and Mitigations

None

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