Medium [CVE-2026-41081] Improper Handling of TLS Client Authentication Failure Leading to Anonymous Principal Assignment in Apache Storm Versions…
This medium-severity Apache Software Foundation advisory covers CVE-2026-41081 affecting Apache Storm.
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Summary
Improper Handling of TLS Client Authentication Failure Leading to Anonymous Principal Assignment in Apache Storm
Versions Affected: up to 2.8.7
When TLS transport is enabled in Apache Storm without requiring client certificate authentication (the default configuration), the TlsTransportPlugin assigns a fallback principal (CN=ANONYMOUS) if no client certificate is presented or if certificate verification fails.
The underlying SSLPeerUnverifiedException is caught and suppressed rather than rejecting the connection.
This fail-open behavior means an unauthenticated client can establish a TLS connection and receive a valid principal identity. If the configured authorizer (e.g., SimpleACLAuthorizer) does not explicitly deny access to CN=ANONYMOUS, this may result in unauthorized access to Storm services.
The condition is logged at debug level only, reducing visibility in production.
Impact: Unauthenticated clients may be assigned a principal identity, potentially bypassing authorization in permissive or misconfigured environments.
Mitigation: Users should upgrade to 2.8.7 in which TLS authentication failures are handled in a fail-closed manner.
Users who cannot upgrade immediately should:
- Enable mandatory client certificate authentication (nimbus.thrift.tls.client.auth.required: true)
- Ensure authorization rules explicitly deny access to CN=ANONYMOUS
- 2.8.7
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 2 months ago·verify at source
Mitigation
Upgrade to a fixed release: 2.8.7. That is the remediation for this advisory.
The vendor advisory may list additional interim mitigations or workarounds not captured here — review it before change work.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 2 months ago·verify at source
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