A critical memory corruption vulnerability dubbed "Linguistic Lumberjack" has been observed within the open-source tool Fluent Bit’s built-in HTTP server that could potentially allow for denial-of-service attacks, data loss or remote code execution.
Fluent Bit has been widely deployed in organizations that use cloud and container environments for logging and metrics, particularly in Kubernetes distributions. It’s also found embedded in major cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and Amazon Web Services. Teams use Fluent Bit to handle complex containerized application log collection, metadata enrichment and data processing.
In a May 20 blog post, Tenable researchers said security teams can resolve the vulnerability — CVE-2024-4323 — by upgrading to the latest version of Fluent Bit and limiting access to the vulnerable endpoint.
The Tenable researchers said the bug was reported to the Fluent Bit project’s maintainers on April 30 and fixes were committed to the project’s main branch on May 15. They were then included in the May 20 release of Fluent Bit version 3.0.4.
Eric Schwake, director of cybersecurity strategy at Salt Security, explained that the Linguistic Lumberjack vulnerability has the potential to cause significant harm to cloud environments in three ways.
First, denial-of-service attacks can overwhelm cloud resources, leading to service outages and disruptions for businesses and their customers. Second, information leaks can also expose sensitive data stored in cloud environments, resulting in potential financial losses, reputational damage, and legal consequences. Finally, in cases where remote code execution is achieved, attackers could move laterally, gaining a foothold within the cloud environment, potentially compromising systems and data further.
“The widespread use of Fluent Bit in cloud environments increases these risks,” said Schwake. “It’s crucial for organizations to prioritize patching and mitigation measures to protect their infrastructure and data.”
Heap overflows can be finicky vulnerabilities to work with, explained John Bambenek, president at Bambenek Consulting. Because of their nature and the mechanics of launching attacks on cloud services, denial-of-service attacks are fairly easy, said Bambenek.
"Similar to buffer overflows, it’s far easier to get a service to crash than to overwrite memory for remote code execution that’s functional and stable," Bambenek said. "This means that many organizations that have public-facing services that rely on cloud workflows would start getting odd ‘service unavailable’ errors in applications. It could be the most annoying for those that are consumer or end-user facing.”
