CVE-2014-3517 — nova
CVE-2014-3517 is a Information Exposure vulnerability in nova. A fix is available for nova — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OpenStack Compute (Nova) Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor vulnerability
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
Real-World Exposure
nova🐍novaReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
api/metadata/handler.py in OpenStack Compute (Nova) before 2013.2.4, 2014.x before 2014.1.2, and Juno before Juno-2, when proxying metadata requests through Neutron, makes it easier for remote attackers to guess instance ID signatures via a brute-force attack that relies on timing differences in responses to instance metadata requests.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | nova | all versions | 2013.2.4pip install --upgrade 'nova==2013.2.4' |
| 🐍PyPI | nova | ≥ 2014.0.0&&< 2014.1.2 | 2014.1.2pip install --upgrade 'nova==2014.1.2' |
Affected Products
novaopenstackDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for nova, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update nova to 2013.2.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2014-3517 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Assume what was exposed is already known: rotate any credential, token or key that the affected component could return, restrict the endpoint to callers that genuinely need it, and strip sensitive fields from responses and error output at the boundary rather than relying on the client not to read them.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| OpenStack 4 for RHEL 6 | openstack-nova-0:2013.2.3-12.el6ost | RHSA-2014:1084 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 5.0 (Icehouse) for RHEL 7 | openstack-nova-0:2014.1.1-4.el7ost | RHSA-2014:0940 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2014-3517 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.