CVE-2024-3183
📋 TL;DR
This FreeIPA vulnerability allows attackers who compromise a principal to obtain encrypted Kerberos tickets and salts, enabling offline brute-force attacks to recover passwords. It affects FreeIPA deployments using Kerberos authentication. The risk is particularly high for environments with weak password policies.
💻 Affected Systems
- FreeIPA
📦 What is this software?
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete domain compromise through password recovery of multiple principals, leading to lateral movement and data exfiltration.
Likely Case
Targeted password cracking of specific high-value accounts after initial principal compromise.
If Mitigated
Limited impact due to strong password policies and monitoring preventing successful brute-force attacks.
🎯 Exploit Status
Requires initial compromise of a principal to obtain tickets and salts. Offline brute-force capability makes exploitation feasible with sufficient computing resources.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: FreeIPA 4.11.2, 4.10.7, 4.9.13 or later
Vendor Advisory: https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3754
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Update FreeIPA packages using your distribution's package manager. 2. Restart FreeIPA services. 3. For RHEL: 'yum update freeipa*' then 'systemctl restart ipa' services.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Enforce Strong Password Policies
linuxImplement complex password requirements to make brute-force attacks computationally infeasible.
ipa pwpolicy-mod --minlength=14 --minclasses=4 --maxfail=3 --failinterval=300 --lockouttime=900
Limit Principal Access
linuxReduce attack surface by minimizing the number of principals and their privileges.
ipa user-find --pkey-only | xargs -I {} ipa user-show {} | grep -E 'User login|Enabled'
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement network segmentation to isolate FreeIPA servers and limit lateral movement
- Deploy enhanced monitoring for unusual Kerberos ticket requests and brute-force attempts
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check FreeIPA version: 'ipa --version' or 'rpm -q freeipa-server'. Versions below 4.11.2, 4.10.7, or 4.9.13 are vulnerable.Check Version:
ipa --versionVerify Fix Applied:
Confirm updated version: 'ipa --version' should show 4.11.2, 4.10.7, 4.9.13 or higher. Verify services are running: 'systemctl status ipa'.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual Kerberos TGS-REQ patterns
- Multiple failed authentication attempts from single source
- Unexpected principal access patterns
Network Indicators:
- Abnormal Kerberos ticket request volumes
- Traffic patterns suggesting offline brute-force preparation
SIEM Query:
source="freeipa" AND (event_type="authentication" AND result="failure") | stats count by src_ip, user | where count > 10🔗 References
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3754
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3755
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3756
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3757
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3758
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3759
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3760
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3761
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3775
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-3183
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2270685
- https://www.freeipa.org/release-notes/4-12-1.html
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3754
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3755
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3756
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3757
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3758
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3759
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3760
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3761
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:3775
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-3183
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2270685
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/WT3JL7JQDIAFKKEFARWYES7GZNWGQNCI/
- https://www.freeipa.org/release-notes/4-12-1.html
