A flaw was found in Ansible Tower when running Openshift. Tower runs a memcached, which is accessed via TCP. An attacker can take advantage of writing a playbook polluting this cache, causing a denial of service attack. This attack would not completely stop the service, but in the worst-case scenario, it can reduce the Tower performance, for which memcached is designed. Theoretically, more sophisticated attacks can be performed by manipulating and crafting the cache, as Tower relies on memcached as a place to pull out setting values. Confidential and sensitive data stored in memcached should not be pulled, as this information is encrypted. This flaw affects Ansible Tower versions before 3.6.4, Ansible Tower versions before 3.5.6 and Ansible Tower versions before 3.4.6.
This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 4.4, requiring local system access to exploit with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction requiring only low-level privileges . The vulnerability impacts limited data confidentiality, and limited availability for affected systems. Impacting 1 product from redhat organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.
Reported in 2021, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.
2021-05-27T19:15:07.687
2024-11-21T04:55:52.520
Modified
CVSSv3.1: 4.4 (MEDIUM)
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:P
3.9
4.9
| Type | Vendor | Product | Version/Range | Vulnerable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Application | redhat | ansible_tower | < 3.4.6 | Yes |
| Application | redhat | ansible_tower | < 3.5.6 | Yes |
| Application | redhat | ansible_tower | < 3.6.4 | Yes |
SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For redhat's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.