What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2024-28847: SpEL Injection in `PUT /api/v1/events/subscriptions` in OpenMetadata

• Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 2.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2024-03-15 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-94

Description

OpenMetadata is a unified platform for discovery, observability, and governance powered by a central metadata repository, in-depth lineage, and seamless team collaboration. Similarly to the GHSL-2023-250 issue, `AlertUtil::validateExpression` is also called from `EventSubscriptionRepository.prepare()`, which can lead to Remote Code Execution. `prepare()` is called from `EntityRepository.prepareInternal()` which, in turn, gets called from `EntityResource.createOrUpdate()`. Note that, even though there is an authorization check (`authorizer.authorize()`), it gets called after `prepareInternal()` gets called and, therefore, after the SpEL expression has been evaluated. In order to reach this method, an attacker can send a PUT request to `/api/v1/events/subscriptions` which gets handled by `EventSubscriptionResource.createOrUpdateEventSubscription()`. This vulnerability was discovered with the help of CodeQL's Expression language injection (Spring) query. This issue may lead to Remote Code Execution and has been addressed in version 1.2.4. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability. This issue is also tracked as `GHSL-2023-251`.

Affected products

• open-metadata OpenMetadata: before 1.2.4 — fixed in 1.2.4

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: open-metadata OpenMetadata 1.2.4. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://codeql.github.com/codeql-query-help/java/java-spel-expression-injection
• https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/blob/b6b337e09a05101506a5faba4b45d370cc3c9fc8/openmetadata-service/src/main/java/org/openmetadata/service/jdbi3/EntityRepository.java#L693
• https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/blob/b6b337e09a05101506a5faba4b45d370cc3c9fc8/openmetadata-service/src/main/java/org/openmetadata/service/jdbi3/EventSubscriptionRepository.java#L69-L83
• https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/blob/b6b337e09a05101506a5faba4b45d370cc3c9fc8/openmetadata-service/src/main/java/org/openmetadata/service/resources/EntityResource.java#L219
• https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/blob/b6b337e09a05101506a5faba4b45d370cc3c9fc8/openmetadata-service/src/main/java/org/openmetadata/service/resources/events/subscription/EventSubscriptionResource.java#L289
• https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/security/advisories/GHSA-8p5r-6mvv-2435
• https://codeql.github.com/codeql-query-help/java/java-spel-expression-injection
• https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/blob/b6b337e09a05101506a5faba4b45d370cc3c9fc8/openmetadata-service/src/main/java/org/openmetadata/service/jdbi3/EntityRepository.java#L693
• https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/blob/b6b337e09a05101506a5faba4b45d370cc3c9fc8/openmetadata-service/src/main/java/org/openmetadata/service/jdbi3/EventSubscriptionRepository.java#L69-L83
• https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/blob/b6b337e09a05101506a5faba4b45d370cc3c9fc8/openmetadata-service/src/main/java/org/openmetadata/service/resources/EntityResource.java#L219
• https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/blob/b6b337e09a05101506a5faba4b45d370cc3c9fc8/openmetadata-service/src/main/java/org/openmetadata/service/resources/events/subscription/EventSubscriptionResource.java#L289
• https://github.com/open-metadata/OpenMetadata/security/advisories/GHSA-8p5r-6mvv-2435

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