Puppet supports use of IP addresses in certnames without warning of potential risks

published 2012-08-06 14 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also GHSA-vxf6-w9mp-95hm , EUVD-2017-0315

cvss: 2.6; 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 76%
public exploits: 0; none known

lib/puppet/network/authstore.rb in Puppet before 2.7.18, and Puppet Enterprise before 2.5.2, supports use of IP addresses in certnames without warning of potential risks, which might allow remote attackers to spoof an agent by acquiring a previously used IP address.

Patch / fix

fixed in 3 distros 1 links 1

rubygems puppet 2.7.18
puppet puppet_enterprise 2.5.2
puppetlabs puppet 2.7.18

puppet Debian 11 2.7.18-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2012-3408

github.com/puppetlabs/puppet@ab9150b commit

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2012-3408 updated 2026-01-28 cvss 2.6

puppet: possible host impersonation when using certificates issues for IP address

Red Hat Enterprise MRG 1 puppet
affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

1.64% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 76% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

github.com https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppet/commit/ab9150baa1b738467a33b01df1d90e076253fbbd referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	2.0	2.6	AV:N/AC:H/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem	package	affected	fixed in
rubygems	puppet	<2.7.18	2.7.18

Classification

Weakness

CWE-287 Improper Authentication

References

github.com /puppetlabs/puppet/commit/ab9150baa1b738467a33b01df1d90e076253fbbd
web, exploit, patch, third-party-advisory
puppetlabs.com /security/cve/cve-2012-3408/
vendor-advisory
bugzilla.redhat.com /show_bug.cgi?id=839166
web, third-party-advisory
nvd.nist.gov /vuln/detail/CVE-2012-3408
advisory
github.com /puppetlabs/puppet
package
github.com /rubysec/ruby-advisory-db/blob/master/gems/puppet/CVE-2012-3408.yml
web
puppet.com /security/cve/cve-2012-3408-agent-impersonation
web
puppetlabs.com /security/cve/cve-2012-3408
web

Sources

CVE List CVE-2012-3408
GitHub Advisory GHSA-vxf6-w9mp-95hm
NVD CVE-2012-3408

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