Summary
Go package github.com/notaryproject/notation configured with permissive trust policies potentially susceptible to rollback attack from compromised registry
Mitigation
In Notary Project, an artifact publisher can control the validity period of artifact by specifying signature expiry during the signing process. Using shorter signature validity periods along with processes to periodically resign artifacts, allows artifact producers to ensure that their consumers will only receive up-to-date artifacts. Artifact consumers should correspondingly use a strict or equivalent trust policy that enforces signature expiry. Together these steps enable use of up-to-date artifacts and safeguard against rollback attack in the event of registry compromise. The Notary Project offers various signature validation options such as permissive, audit and skip to support various scenarios. These scenarios includes 1) situations demanding urgent workload deployment, necessitating the bypassing of expired or revoked signatures; 2) auditing of artifacts lacking signatures without interrupting workload; and 3) skipping of verification for specific images that might have undergone validation through alternative mechanisms.
Additionally, the Notary Project supports revocation to ensure the signature freshness. Artifact publishers can sign with short-lived certificates and revoke older certificates when necessary. This revocation serves as a signal to inform artifact consumers that the corresponding unexpired artifact is no longer approved by the publisher. This enables the artifact publisher to control the validity of the signature independently of their ability to manage artifacts in a compromised registry.
Credit
The Notary Project extends its gratitude to Justin Cappos (@JustinCappos) for responsibly disclosing the issue.
_Note: we have updated threat model to include considerations for rollback attack.
Impact
An external actor with control of a compromised container registry can provide outdated versions of OCI artifacts, such as Images. This could lead artifact consumers with relaxed trust policies (such as permissive instead of strict) to potentially use artifacts with signatures that are no longer valid, making them susceptible to any exploits those artifacts may contain.
CVE-2024-23332 has a CVSS score of 4.0 (Medium). The vector is network-reachable, high privileges required, and user interaction required. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. No fixed version is listed yet, so configuration controls and monitoring matter more in the interim.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2024-23332? CVE-2024-23332 is a medium-severity security vulnerability in github.com/notaryproject/notation (go), affecting versions <= 1.0.0. No fixed version is listed yet.
- How severe is CVE-2024-23332? CVE-2024-23332 has a CVSS score of 4.0 (Medium). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
- Which versions of github.com/notaryproject/notation are affected by CVE-2024-23332? github.com/notaryproject/notation (go) versions <= 1.0.0 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2024-23332? No fixed version is listed for CVE-2024-23332 yet. Monitor the advisory for updates and apply mitigations in the interim.
- Is CVE-2024-23332 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2024-23332 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
- What actually determines whether CVE-2024-23332 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.