Summary
Searching Opencast may cause a denial of service
Workarounds
None identified.
References
Pull Requests
- Preventing the infinite loop issue: https://github.com/opencast/opencast/pull/5150
- Sanitizing user input: https://github.com/opencast/opencast/pull/5033
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Open an issue in our issue tracker
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Credit
Credit to Adilagha Aliyev of Graz University of Technology, Educational Technologies, [email protected]
Impact
First noticed in Opencast 13 and 14, Opencast's Elasticsearch integration may generate syntactically invalid Elasticsearch queries in relation to previously acceptable search queries. From Opencast version 11.4 and newer, Elasticsearch queries are retried a configurable number of times in the case of error to handle temporary losses of connection to Elasticsearch. These invalid queries would fail, causing the retry mechanism to begin requerying with the same syntactically invalid query immediately, in an infinite loop. This causes a massive increase in log size which can in some cases cause a denial of service due to disk exhaustion.
The application allocates resources such as memory, threads, or file descriptors based on untrusted input without enforcing a cap. Typical impact: resource exhaustion leading to denial of service.
CVE-2024-52797 has a CVSS score of 6.5 (Medium). The vector is network-reachable, low privileges required, and no user interaction. 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. A fixed version is available (14.3, 16.7, 13.10); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.
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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Opencast 13.10 and Opencast 14.3 contain patches (https://github.com/opencast/opencast/pull/5150, and https://github.com/opencast/opencast/pull/5033) which address the base issue, with Opencast 16.7 containing changes which harmonize the search behaviour between the admin UI and external API. Users are strongly recommended to upgrade as soon as possible if running versions prior to 13.10 or 14.3. While the relevant endpoints require (by default) ROLE_ADMIN or ROLE_API_SERIES_VIEW, the problem queries are otherwise innocuous. This issue could be easily triggered by normal administrative work on an affected Opencast system. If you are running a version newer than 13.10 and 14.3 and seeing different results when searching in your admin UI vs your external API or LMS, upgrading to 16.7 should resolve the issue.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2024-52797? CVE-2024-52797 is a medium-severity allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability in org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-impl (maven), affecting versions >= 14.0, < 14.3. It is fixed in 14.3, 16.7, 13.10. The application allocates resources such as memory, threads, or file descriptors based on untrusted input without enforcing a cap.
- How severe is CVE-2024-52797? CVE-2024-52797 has a CVSS score of 6.5 (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 org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-impl are affected by CVE-2024-52797? org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-impl (maven) versions >= 14.0, < 14.3 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2024-52797? Yes. CVE-2024-52797 is fixed in 14.3, 16.7, 13.10. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2024-52797 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2024-52797 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-2024-52797 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.
- How do I fix CVE-2024-52797?
- Upgrade
org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-implto 14.3 or later - Upgrade
org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-implto 16.7 or later - Upgrade
org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-implto 13.10 or later
- Upgrade