Chef Improper Access Control vulnerability

published 2012-08-08 14 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also GHSA-f68m-q26r-64f6 , EUVD-2022-3702

cvss: 6.5; version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 1.6%; EPSS 1.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 75%
public exploits: 0; none known

chef-server-api/app/controllers/users.rb in the API in Chef before 0.9.0 does not require administrative privileges for the create, destroy, and update methods, which allows remote authenticated users to manage user accounts via requests to the /users URI.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 links 1

rubygems chef 0.9.0

github.com/opscode/chef@c3bb41f commit

Exploit prediction

1.57% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 75% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	2.0	6.5	AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected packages

ecosystem	package	affected	fixed in
rubygems	chef	<0.9.0	0.9.0

Classification

Weakness

CWE-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls
CWE-284 Improper Access Control

References

github.com /opscode/chef/commit/c3bb41f727fbe00e5de719d687757b24c8dcdfc8
web, patch
tickets.opscode.com /browse/CHEF-1289
web
nvd.nist.gov /vuln/detail/CVE-2010-5142
advisory
github.com /chef/chef
package
github.com /rubysec/ruby-advisory-db/blob/master/gems/chef/CVE-2010-5142.yml
web

Sources

CVE List CVE-2010-5142
GitHub Advisory GHSA-f68m-q26r-64f6
NVD CVE-2010-5142

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary