GCP - Cloudscheduler Privesc

👉 Overview

👀 What ?

GCP Cloudscheduler Privesc is a privilege escalation vulnerability within Google Cloud Platform's Cloudscheduler. Cloudscheduler is a fully managed, reliable job scheduling service that allows developers to schedule virtually any job, including batch, big data, and cloud infrastructure operations at any scale. This vulnerability allows a malicious entity to escalate their privileges within the platform.

🧐 Why ?

This subject is crucial given the ubiquitous use of cloud services today. As businesses increasingly migrate their operations to the cloud, understanding such vulnerabilities is critical for securing cloud-based assets and data. This vulnerability poses a significant threat because it can allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access to resources and sensitive data within the cloud environment.

⛏️ How ?

To take advantage of this vulnerability, an attacker would first need to gain access to a less privileged user account within the Google Cloud Platform. From there, they can exploit this vulnerability to escalate their privileges and gain greater access within the system. To protect against this, organizations should enforce strong access controls, regularly audit and monitor cloud activities, and promptly apply all security patches and updates provided by Google.

⏳ When ?

The use of cloud services has been on the rise for the past decade, and with it, the discovery and exploitation of vulnerabilities such as GCP Cloudscheduler Privesc. This particular vulnerability was first publicly disclosed in 2020.

⚙️ Technical Explanations

The GCP Cloudscheduler Privesc vulnerability allows an attacker to escalate their privileges by exploiting weak permissions on the Cloudscheduler service. This service is typically used to manage and schedule jobs in the cloud. However, if the permissions are not configured correctly, an attacker with a lower-privileged access can create and schedule jobs with higher privileges. This can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive data or even full control over the cloud environment.