MinIO: information disclosure flaw under attack

What is affected

MinIO is mostly run by companies, schools and public bodies, not on home computers. You are unlikely to have it yourself, but organisations that hold your data may. Breaches that start with flaws like this one are how personal data ends up leaked.

MinIO contains a vulnerability in a cluster deployment where MinIO returns all environment variables, which allows for information disclosure.

What an attacker can do

This is a information disclosure flaw. It lets an attacker read data they are not supposed to see, such as memory contents, credentials or internal files. It is often the first step of a larger attack.

How it is reached

Over the internet or network

Access the attacker needs

No account needed

Does the victim have to do something?

No, works without the victim doing anything

What to do

1. At home: nothing to install. Keep your own devices updated and use a different password for every service, so that a breach at one organisation does not open your other accounts.
2. If you administer MinIO at work: apply the vendor's fix or mitigation now and review logs for signs of compromise, because the flaw was being exploited before it was listed.
3. If the product is past its support date and no fix exists, take it off the internet or retire it.

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Vendor advisories and fixes

• github.comgithub.com/minio/minio/security/advisories/GHSA-6xvq-wj2x-3h3q

How urgent is it

CISA added this vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue on April 21, 2023, which means there is reliable evidence of attacks in the wild. US federal agencies must fix it by May 12, 2023, a deadline that has already passed. That deadline does not bind anyone else, but it shows how seriously the agency rates it.

The EPSS model estimates a 84% probability that this flaw will be exploited somewhere in the next 30 days. That is higher than 99.7% of all scored vulnerabilities.

Its CVSS severity score is 7.5 out of 10 (high), as recorded in the US National Vulnerability Database.

Technical description

Minio is a Multi-Cloud Object Storage framework. In a cluster deployment starting with RELEASE.2019-12-17T23-16-33Z and prior to RELEASE.2023-03-20T20-16-18Z, MinIO returns all environment variables, including `MINIO_SECRET_KEY` and `MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD`, resulting in information disclosure. All users of distributed deployment are impacted. All users are advised to upgrade to RELEASE.2023-03-20T20-16-18Z.