GHSA-4685-2x5r-65pj 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 GHSA-4685-2x5r-65pj.
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
GHSA-4685-2x5r-65pj 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 379,145 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/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 |
Detection & 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 GHSA-4685-2x5r-65pj 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 GHSA-4685-2x5r-65pj can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-4685-2x5r-65pj. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-4685-2x5r-65pj in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-4685-2x5r-65pj across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.