Security Bulletin: Vulnerability in Apache Log4j affects IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Container Backup and Restore for Kubernetes and OpenShift (CVE-2021-44228)

Summary

A vulnerability in Apache Log4j could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system. This vulnerability may affect IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Container backup and restore for Kubernetes and OpenShift due to its use of the Strimzi operator.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID:CVE-2021-44228
**DESCRIPTION:**Apache Log4j could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system, caused by the failure to protect against attacker controlled LDAP and other JNDI related endpoints by JNDI features. By sending a specially crafted code string, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to load arbitrary Java code on the server and take complete control of the system. Note: The vulnerability is also called Log4Shell or LogJam.
CVSS Base score: 10
CVSS Temporal Score: See: https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/214921 for the current score.
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H)

Affected Products and Versions

Remediation/Fixes

IBM strongly recommends addressing this vulnerability now by upgrading to the fixed level instead of using the manual process described under Workarounds and Mitigations.

Note: The below fix package included Log4j 2.15.

IBM Spectrum Protect Affected Versions|**Fixing
**Level|Platform|**Link to Fix and Instructions
**
—|—|—|—
10.1.9.0| 10.1.9.1| Linux| <https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6487159&gt;

.

Workarounds and Mitigations

Procedure for manually addressing this vulnerability**

**

The strimzi Operator used by IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Container backup and restore is affected by this vulnerability.

To fix this issue:
:

For Cluster Operator, edit the Deployment and set the environment variable JAVA_OPTS to -Dlog4j2.formatMsgNoLookups=true

1. oc get deployment -n baas

2. oc edit deployment strimzi-cluster-operator-v0.26.0 -n baas

e.g.

spec:

containers:

- args:

- /opt/strimzi/bin/cluster_operator_run.sh

env:

- name: JAVA_OPTS

value: -Dlog4j2.formatMsgNoLookups=true

- name: STRIMZI_NAMESPACE

valueFrom:

fieldRef:…

Editing deployment will cause strimzi-cluster-opreator pod to restart after which the system is patched.

Alternatively run the following command:

kubectl set env deploy/strimzi-cluster-operator-v0.26.0 JAVA_OPTS=“-Dlog4j2.formatMsgNoLookups=true” LOG4J_FORMAT_MSG_NO_LOOKUPS=“true” -n baas

3. Edit the Kafka cluster definition so that the strimzi-entity-operator sets formatMsgNoLookup=true.

oc edit kafkas.kafka.strimzi.io -n baas baas

Under the field spec.entityOperator.topicOperator set the following fields.

topicOperator:

jvmOptions:

javaSystemProperties:

- name: log4j2.formatMsgNoLookups

value: “true”

Under the field spec.entityOperator.userOperator set the following fields.

userOperator:

jvmOptions:

javaSystemProperties:

- name: log4j2.formatMsgNoLookups

value: “true”

Save and close the file. The baas-entity-operator pod will automatically terminate and restart with the new options.

4. Confirm the settings were applied correctly by examining the logs of the baas-entity-operator pod.

The topic and user operator container logs should have lines such as below when starting that the JAVA_OPTS includes the formatMsgNoLookup=true option. See below for an example. Individual container logs may vary.

+ JAVA_OPTS=’ -Dlog4j2.configurationFile=file:/opt/topic-operator/custom-config/log4j2.properties -Dlog4j2.formatMsgNoLookups=true -Dvertx.cacheDirBase=/tmp/vertx-cache -Djava.security.egd=file:/dev/./urandom’

Alternatives:

Updating the Strimzi operator in the install namespace from 0.26.0 to 0.26.1 or higher version will fix the vulnerability.