CVE-2024-4540 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-312 vulnerability in org.keycloak:keycloak-services. A fix is available for org.keycloak:keycloak-services — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Keycloak exposes sensitive information in Pushed Authorization Requests (PAR)
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-2024-4540.
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-2024-4540 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
org.keycloak:keycloak-servicesReal-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
A flaw was found in Keycloak in the OAuth 2.0 Pushed Authorization Requests (PAR). Client provided parameters were found to be included in plain text in the KC_RESTART cookie returned by the authorization server's HTTP response to a request_uri authorization request. This could lead to an information disclosure vulnerability.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.keycloak:keycloak-services | all versions | 24.0.5org.keycloak:keycloak-services:24.0.5 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.keycloak:keycloak-services, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.keycloak:keycloak-services to 24.0.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-4540 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-2024-4540 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-4540. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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 Build of Keycloak | see advisory | RHSA-2024:3574 |
| Red Hat Build of Keycloak | see advisory | RHSA-2024:3575 |
| Red Hat build of Keycloak 22 | rhbk/keycloak-operator-bundle:22.0.11-2 | RHSA-2024:3573 |
| Red Hat build of Keycloak 24 | rhbk/keycloak-operator-bundle:24.0.5-2 | RHSA-2024:3576 |
| Red Hat Single Sign-On 7 | see advisory | RHSA-2024:3572 |
| Red Hat Single Sign-On 7.6 for RHEL 7 | rh-sso7-keycloak-0:18.0.14-1.redhat_00001.1.el7sso | RHSA-2024:3566 |
| Red Hat Single Sign-On 7.6 for RHEL 8 | rh-sso7-keycloak-0:18.0.14-1.redhat_00001.1.el8sso | RHSA-2024:3567 |
| Red Hat Single Sign-On 7.6 for RHEL 9 | rh-sso7-keycloak-0:18.0.14-1.redhat_00001.1.el9sso | RHSA-2024:3568 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-4540 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-4540 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.