CVE-2023-44981
No exploitation reported by the sources we read.
- Published2023-10-11
- Fixed in3.8.3 · 3.7.2
- WeaknessCWE-639
Am I affected?
Debian, Ubuntu or Red Hat sometimes backport a fix without changing the upstream version number: such a version reads « to verify », never « affected ».With a domain, we read the version its public headers and pages expose. A distribution build can carry the fix under an older number.
Description
Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key vulnerability in Apache ZooKeeper. If SASL Quorum Peer authentication is enabled in ZooKeeper (quorum.auth.enableSasl=true), the authorization is done by verifying that the instance part in SASL authentication ID is listed in zoo.cfg server list. The instance part in SASL auth ID is optional and if it's missing, like 'eve@EXAMPLE.COM', the authorization check will be skipped. As a result an arbitrary endpoint could join the cluster and begin propagating counterfeit changes to the leader, essentially giving it complete read-write access to the data tree. Quorum Peer authentication is not enabled by default. Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.9.1, 3.8.3, 3.7.2, which fixes the issue. Alternately ensure the ensemble election/quorum communication is protected by a firewall as this will mitigate the issue. See the documentation for more details on correct cluster administration.
Timeline
dates in UTC- 2023-10-1112:15CVE publishedNVD
Observed activity
isMalicious corpus · updated 2026-10-23 18:48 UTCBlock these indicators
- Firewall list (EDL, text): https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2023-44981?format=txt
- CSV export: https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2023-44981?format=csv
- TAXII collection of exploited CVEs
- The EDL and CSV take an API key on the Pro plan.
Versions per branch
NVD| Branch | Affected | Fixed in | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.8 | ≥ 3.8.0, < 3.8.3 | 3.8.3 | NVD |
| 3.7 | < 3.7.2 | 3.7.2 | NVD |
| 3.9 | = 3.9.0 | no fix published | NVD |
| Branch | Affected | Fixed in | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10.0 | = 10.0 | no fix published | NVD |
| 11.0 | = 11.0 | no fix published | NVD |
| 12.0 | = 12.0 | no fix published | NVD |
as publishedRanges as NVD and OSV publish them; a distribution’s build can be fixed under an older number.
Fix
- Update Apache zookeeper to 3.8.3 · 3.7.2
Advisories and patches
- lists.apache.orgVendor Advisory
Detection
- Nuclei template
- none so far ProjectDiscovery
- Exploit-DB
- no entry Exploit-DB
- Proof-of-concept repositories
- none listed PoC-in-GitHub
Sources
Technical details
- CVSS v3 Vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
- Published
- 2023-10-11
- Last Modified
- 2026-06-17
- NVD status
- Modified
Frequently asked questions
What is CVE-2023-44981?
Is CVE-2023-44981 actively exploited?
What is the CVSS score for CVE-2023-44981?
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