CVE-2018-11770

MEDIUM EXPLOITED

Apache Spark < 2.4.0 - Authentication Bypass

Title source: rule

Description

From version 1.3.0 onward, Apache Spark's standalone master exposes a REST API for job submission, in addition to the submission mechanism used by spark-submit. In standalone, the config property 'spark.authenticate.secret' establishes a shared secret for authenticating requests to submit jobs via spark-submit. However, the REST API does not use this or any other authentication mechanism, and this is not adequately documented. In this case, a user would be able to run a driver program without authenticating, but not launch executors, using the REST API. This REST API is also used by Mesos, when set up to run in cluster mode (i.e., when also running MesosClusterDispatcher), for job submission. Future versions of Spark will improve documentation on these points, and prohibit setting 'spark.authenticate.secret' when running the REST APIs, to make this clear. Future versions will also disable the REST API by default in the standalone master by changing the default value of 'spark.master.rest.enabled' to 'false'.

Exploits (2)

nomisec WORKING POC 1 stars
by ivanitlearning · remote
https://github.com/ivanitlearning/CVE-2018-11770
metasploit WORKING POC EXCELLENT
by Fengwei Zhang, Imran Rashid, aRe00t · rubypocjava
https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework/blob/master/modules/exploits/linux/http/spark_unauth_rce.rb

Scores

CVSS v3 4.2
EPSS 0.8900
EPSS Percentile 99.5%
Attack Vector NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N

Details

VulnCheck KEV 2026-01-31
CWE
CWE-287
Status published
Products (3)
apache/spark 1.3.0 - 2.4.0
org.apache.spark/spark-core_2.10 1.0.0Maven
org.apache.spark/spark-core_2.11 1.0.0Maven
Published Aug 13, 2018
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026