CVE-2024-3250 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-732 vulnerability in github.com/canonical/pebble. A fix is available for github.com/canonical/pebble — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Pebble service manager's file pull API allows access by any user
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-2024-3250.
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
github.com/canonical/pebble🐹github.com/canonical/pebble🐹github.com/canonical/pebble🐹github.com/canonical/pebbleReal-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
Impact
Note: "Pebble" here refers to Canonical's service manager, not the Let's Encrypt ACME test server.
The API behind pebble pull, used to read files from the workload container by Juju charms, allows access from any user, instead of just admin. In Juju Kubernetes sidecar charms, Pebble and the charm run as root, so they have full access. But if another restricted unix user gains local access to the container host, they could hit the Pebble GET /v1/files?action=read API and would be allowed to read any file in the workload container, for example an ssh key or database password or other sensitive information. If there are ssh keys they could then potentially ssh into the workload, or if something like a database password they could log into the database.
Note that this requires local user access to the host machine. It seems unlikely that an attacker could gain this level of access in a Juju Kubernetes context, but if someone did and there's sensitive information in files accessible to Pebble, the consequences are bad.
To reproduce the issue, go back to the Pebble version in Juju 2.9 (5842ea68c9c7), do pebble run as root in one terminal window, then in another terminal window, as a regular user, use the pebble pull CLI. You will be able to pull any file as a regular user.
Patches
The original patch is commit https://github.com/canonical/pebble/commit/cd326225b9b0be067da7d8858e2c912078cbbbd5. There's also https://github.com/canonical/pebble/pull/406, which fixes this issue in more recent Pebble versions (that PR also fixes a separate issue we introduced more recently, but hasn't been released in Juju yet).
We released the fix in the following Pebble versions:
- https://github.com/canonical/pebble/releases/tag/v1.1.1
- https://github.com/canonical/pebble/releases/tag/v1.4.2
- https://github.com/canonical/pebble/releases/tag/v1.7.4
- https://github.com/canonical/pebble/releases/tag/v1.10.2
Juju will be releasing patch versions with this fix shortly:
- Juju 2.9.49 (Pebble v1.1.1)
- Juju 3.1.8 (Pebble v1.4.2)
- Juju 3.3.4 (Pebble v1.4.2)
- Juju 3.4.2 (Pebble v1.7.4)
- Juju 3.5.0 (Pebble v1.10.2)
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/canonical/pebble | ≥ 1.2.0&&< 1.4.2 | 1.4.2go get github.com/canonical/pebble@v1.4.2 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/canonical/pebble | ≥ 1.5.0&&< 1.7.3 | 1.7.3go get github.com/canonical/pebble@v1.7.3 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/canonical/pebble | ≥ 1.8.0&&< 1.10.2 | 1.10.2go get github.com/canonical/pebble@v1.10.2 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/canonical/pebble | all versions | 1.1.1go get github.com/canonical/pebble@v1.1.1 |
Affected Products
pebblecanonicalDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/canonical/pebble, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/canonical/pebble to 1.4.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-3250 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-3250 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.