CVE-2022-31044 — rundeck
HIGHCVE-2022-31044 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-256 vulnerability in org.rundeck:rundeck. A fix is available for org.rundeck:rundeck — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Plaintext Storage of Keys and Passwords in Rundeck and PagerDuty Process Automation
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2022-31044.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2022-31044 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,567 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
org.rundeck:rundeck☕org.rundeck:rundeckReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
The Key Storage converter plugin mechanism was not enabled correctly in Rundeck 4.2.0 and 4.2.1, resulting in use of the encryption layer for Key Storage possibly not working. Any credentials created or overwritten using Rundeck 4.2.0 or 4.2.1 might result in them being written in plaintext to the backend storage.
If you are using a "Storage Converter" plugin, such as jasypt-encryption configured via the rundeck.storage.converter.1.type=jasypt-encryption setting, and you installed 4.2.0 or 4.2.1 then please upgrade to one of the patched versions.
If you do not use a "Storage Converter" plugin, this would not affect you.
Patches
Rundeck 4.3.2 and 4.2.3 have fixed the code and upon upgrade will re-encrypt any plain text values. The fix is also included in 4.4.0 and later releases.
Note: 4.3.0 does not have the vulnerability, but does not include the patch to re-encrypt plain text values if 4.2.0 or 4.2.1 were used. The previously release 4.3.1 and 4.2.2 versions missed some re-encryption use cases that have been fixed in the versions mentioned above.
Workarounds
To prevent plaintext credentials from being stored in Rundeck 4.2.0/4.2.1, write access to key storage can be disabled via ACLs. After upgrading to 4.3.1 or later, write access can be restored.
This aclpolicy document can be used to deny all write access to storage:
---
by:
group: '.*'
context:
application: rundeck
for:
storage:
- deny:
- create
- update
description: deny create or update for storage in application context
---
by:
group: '.*'
context:
project: .*
for:
storage:
- deny:
- create
- update
description: deny create or update for storage in project context
To remove plaintext credentials, the metadata of stored keys can be used to detect if the key was stored with encryption enabled or not. In the case of the “jasypt-encryption” plugin, encrypted values will have a metadata field of “jasypt-encryption:encrypted”:”true” in the JSON metadata. If you are using the relational database as your key storage backend (rundeck.storage.provider.1.type=db), you can query for keys that are unencrypted. Here is an example query for Mysql:
select id,dir,name from storage where json_data not like "%jasypt-encryption:encrypted\":\"true%" and namespace is null and dir like "keys%"
References
Configuration Settings for Storage Converters: https://docs.rundeck.com/docs/administration/configuration/plugins/configuring.html#storage-converter-plugins
About Storage Converters: https://docs.rundeck.com/docs/manual/key-storage/key-storage.html#key-data-storage-converter
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Open an issue in our forums
- Enterprise Customers can open a Support ticket
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.rundeck:rundeck | ≥ 4.2.0&&< 4.2.2 | 4.2.2org.rundeck:rundeck:4.2.2 |
| ☕Maven | org.rundeck:rundeck | ≥ 4.3.0&&< 4.3.1 | 4.3.1org.rundeck:rundeck:4.3.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.rundeck:rundeck, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.rundeck:rundeck to 4.2.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-31044 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2022-31044 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2022-31044. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-31044 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2022-31044 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.