CVE-2018-16856 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-532 vulnerability in octavia. A fix is available for octavia — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Openstack Octavia allows Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
octavia🐍octaviaReal-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
In a default Red Hat Openstack Platform Director installation, openstack-octavia before versions openstack-octavia 2.0.2-5 and openstack-octavia-3.0.1-0.20181009115732 creates log files that are readable by all users. Sensitive information such as private keys can appear in these log files allowing for information exposure.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | octavia | all versions | 2.1.0pip install --upgrade 'octavia==2.1.0' |
| 🐍PyPI | octavia | ≥ 3.0.0.0b1&&< 3.1.0 | 3.1.0pip install --upgrade 'octavia==3.1.0' |
Affected Products
octaviaopenstackopenstackredhatDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for octavia, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update octavia to 2.1.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2018-16856 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenStack Platform 13.0 (Queens) | openstack-octavia-0:2.0.3-2.el7ost | RHSA-2019:0567 |
| Red Hat OpenStack Platform 14.0 (Rocky) | openstack-octavia-0:3.0.2-0.20181219195054.ec4c88e.el7ost | RHSA-2019:0593 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2018-16856 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.