CVE-2021-32701

high

Description

ORY Oathkeeper is an Identity & Access Proxy (IAP) and Access Control Decision API that authorizes HTTP requests based on sets of Access Rules. When you make a request to an endpoint that requires the scope `foo` using an access token granted with that `foo` scope, introspection will be valid and that token will be cached. The problem comes when a second requests to an endpoint that requires the scope `bar` is made before the cache has expired. Whether the token is granted or not to the `bar` scope, introspection will be valid. A patch will be released with `v0.38.12-beta.1`. Per default, caching is disabled for the `oauth2_introspection` authenticator. When caching is disabled, this vulnerability does not exist. The cache is checked in [`func (a *AuthenticatorOAuth2Introspection) Authenticate(...)`](https://github.com/ory/oathkeeper/blob/6a31df1c3779425e05db1c2a381166b087cb29a4/pipeline/authn/authenticator_oauth2_introspection.go#L152). From [`tokenFromCache()`](https://github.com/ory/oathkeeper/blob/6a31df1c3779425e05db1c2a381166b087cb29a4/pipeline/authn/authenticator_oauth2_introspection.go#L97) it seems that it only validates the token expiration date, but ignores whether the token has or not the proper scopes. The vulnerability was introduced in PR #424. During review, we failed to require appropriate test coverage by the submitter which is the primary reason that the vulnerability passed the review process.

References

Details

Source: Mitre, NVD

Published: 2021-06-22

Updated: 2026-06-17

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Base Score: 4.3

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

Severity: Medium

CVSS v3

Base Score: 7.5

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Severity: High

EPSS

EPSS: 0.00308