CVE-2023-1299 — nomad
HIGHCVE-2023-1299 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.4) CWE-862 vulnerability in github.com/hashicorp/nomad. A fix is available for github.com/hashicorp/nomad — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Nomad Job Submitter Privilege Escalation Using Workload Identity
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2023-1299.
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-2023-1299 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 378,156 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
github.com/hashicorp/nomadReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
A vulnerability was identified in Nomad and Nomad Enterprise (“Nomad”) such that a user with the submit-job ACL capability can submit a job that can escalate to management-level privileges. This vulnerability, CVE-2023-1299, was introduced in Nomad 1.5.0 and fixed in Nomad 1.5.1.
Background
Nomad 1.4.0 introduced the concept of workload identity so that tasks can access variables without needing to access them through Nomad HTTP API with an ACL token.
In 1.5.0, the identity block was introduced, which exposes the workload identity token to the workload so it can access Nomad HTTP API via a unix domain socket without configuring mTLS.
Details
During internal testing, we discovered it was possible to abuse the workload identity to elevate to management-level privilege if the workload identity did not have any attached ACL policies.
Remediation
Customers should evaluate the risk associated with this issue and consider upgrading to Nomad 1.5.1 or newer. See Nomad’s Upgrading for general guidance on this process.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/hashicorp/nomad | ≥ 1.5.0&&< 1.5.1 | 1.5.1go get github.com/hashicorp/nomad@v1.5.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/hashicorp/nomad, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/hashicorp/nomad to 1.5.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-1299 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-2023-1299 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-1299. 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-2023-1299 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-1299 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.