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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.9

CVE-2022-33681 json

Improper Hostname Verification in Java Client and Proxy can expose authentication data via MITM

published 2022-09-23 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-c5fp-x2h5-vjv7 , EUVD-2022-6774

cvss
5.9
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.7%
EPSS 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 53%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Delayed TLS hostname verification in the Pulsar Java Client and the Pulsar Proxy make each client vulnerable to a man in the middle attack. Connections from the Pulsar Java Client to the Pulsar Broker/Proxy and connections from the Pulsar Proxy to the Pulsar Broker are vulnerable. Authentication data is sent before verifying the server’s TLS certificate matches the hostname, which means authentication data could be exposed to an attacker. An attacker can only take advantage of this vulnerability by taking control of a machine 'between' the client and the server. The attacker must then actively manipulate traffic to perform the attack by providing the client with a cryptographically valid certificate for an unrelated host. Because the client sends authentication data before performing hostname verification, an attacker could gain access to the client’s authentication data. The client eventually closes the connection when it verifies the hostname and identifies the targeted hostname does not match a hostname on the certificate. Because the client eventually closes the connection, the value of the intercepted authentication data depends on the authentication method used by the client. Token based authentication and username/password authentication methods are vulnerable because the authentication data can be used to impersonate the client in a separate session. This issue affects Apache Pulsar Java Client versions 2.7.0 to 2.7.4; 2.8.0 to 2.8.3; 2.9.0 to 2.9.2; 2.10.0; 2.6.4 and earlier.

Patch / fix

  • maven org.apache.pulsar:pulsar-client 2.7.5, 2.8.4, 2.9.3, 2.10.1
  • apache pulsar 2.7.5, 2.8.4, 2.9.3

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2022-33681 updated cvss 5.9

Pulsar: Improper Hostname Verification in Java Client and Proxy can expose authentication data via MITM

  • Red Hat Fuse 7 org.apache.pulsar-pulsar-client org.apache.pulsar-pulsar-client Red Hat Integration Camel K 1 org.apache.pulsar-pulsar-client org.apache.pulsar-pulsar-client Red Hat Integration Camel Quarkus 1 org.apache.pulsar-pulsar-client org.apache.pulsar-pulsar-client
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat RHINT Camel-Springboot 3.20.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:2100

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
17 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.70% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 53% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CNA 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
GitHub 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
maven org.apache.pulsar:pulsar-client
<2.7.5
>=2.8.0, <2.8.4
>=2.9.0, <2.9.3
>=2.10.0, <2.10.1
2.7.5
2.8.4
2.9.3
2.10.1

Affected products

  • Apache Software Foundation Apache Pulsar

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-295 Improper Certificate Validation

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.