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MEDIUM

CVE-2018-11770

CVSS v3

4.2

MEDIUM

EPSS Score

65.8 %

exploit probability, as of 2026-10-19

CISA KEV

No

known exploited

Exploitation

—

SSVC status

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Affected and fixed versions

Packages from OSV.dev and products from the vendors' CSAF advisories.

version not verifiedVersions not verified: read as OSV.dev and the vendors publish them, not checked against each vendor's release list.

Packages

  • org.apache.spark:spark-core_2.10Mavenfrom 1.0.0 · no fixed version listedand 1 other package

Vendor advisories

  • CVE-2018-11770 Red Hat Product Security

    spark: Missing authentication allows users to run driver programs via the REST API

Full record on NVD

Description

From version 1.3.0 onward, Apache Spark's standalone master exposes a REST API for job submission, in addition to the submission mechanism used by spark-submit. In standalone, the config property 'spark.authenticate.secret' establishes a shared secret for authenticating requests to submit jobs via spark-submit. However, the REST API does not use this or any other authentication mechanism, and this is not adequately documented. In this case, a user would be able to run a driver program without authenticating, but not launch executors, using the REST API. This REST API is also used by Mesos, when set up to run in cluster mode (i.e., when also running MesosClusterDispatcher), for job submission. Future versions of Spark will improve documentation on these points, and prohibit setting 'spark.authenticate.secret' when running the REST APIs, to make this clear. Future versions will also disable the REST API by default in the standalone master by changing the default value of 'spark.master.rest.enabled' to 'false'.

Technical details

Published
2018-08-13

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-11770?

From version 1.3.0 onward, Apache Spark's standalone master exposes a REST API for job submission, in addition to the submission mechanism used by spark-submit. In standalone, the config property 'spark.authenticate.secret' establishes a shared secret for authenticating requests to submit jobs via spark-submit. However, the REST API does not use this or any other authentication mechanism, and this is not adequately documented. In this case, a user would be able to run a driver program without authenticating, but not launch executors, using the REST API. This REST API is also used by Mesos, when set up to run in cluster mode (i.e., when also running MesosClusterDispatcher), for job submission. Future versions of Spark will improve documentation on these points, and prohibit setting 'spark.authenticate.secret' when running the REST APIs, to make this clear. Future versions will also disable the REST API by default in the standalone master by changing the default value of 'spark.master.rest.enabled' to 'false'.

Is CVE-2018-11770 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2018-11770 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 65.8% on 2026-10-19, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2018-11770?

CVE-2018-11770 has a CVSS v3 base score of 4.2 (MEDIUM severity).

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