Detections
Analytics

Apache Spark < 2.4.6 RCE (CVE-2020-9480)

critical Nessus Plugin ID 172445

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Synopsis

The remote host contains a web application that is affected by a remote command execution vulnerability.

Description

In Apache Spark 2.4.5 and earlier, a standalone resource manager's master may be configured to require authentication (spark.authenticate) via a shared secret. When enabled, however, a specially-crafted RPC to the master can succeed in starting an application's resources on the Spark cluster, even without the shared key. This can be leveraged to execute shell commands on the host machine. This does not affect Spark clusters using other resource managers (YARN, Mesos, etc).

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Upgrade Apache Spark to 2.4.6, 3.0.0, or later.

See Also

https://spark.apache.org/security.html#CVE-2020-9480

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 172445

File Name: apache_spark_CVE-2020-9480.nasl

Version: 1.5

Type: remote

Family: Misc.

Published: 3/10/2023

Updated: 5/14/2025

Configuration: Enable paranoid mode

Supported Sensors: Nessus

Enable CGI Scanning: true

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 5.9

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 9.3

Temporal Score: 7.7

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

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2020-9480

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 9.1

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:F/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/a:apache:spark

Required KB Items: Settings/ParanoidReport, installed_sw/Apache Spark

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 6/5/2020

Vulnerability Publication Date: 6/23/2020

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2020-9480