CVE-2022-41234 is a high-severity vulnerability affecting the Jenkins Rundeck Plugin versions 3.6.11 and earlier. The vulnerability arises because the plugin does not adequately protect access to the /plugin/rundeck/webhook/ endpoint. Specifically, users who have Overall/Read permission in Jenkins—which is a relatively low privilege level—can trigger jobs configured to be triggerable via Rundeck without further authorization checks. This means that an attacker or a user with limited read access can remotely invoke potentially sensitive or critical Jenkins jobs through the webhook endpoint. The vulnerability is classified under CWE-862 (Missing Authorization), indicating that the system fails to enforce proper access control on a sensitive operation. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 8.8 (high), with the vector indicating network attack vector (AV:N), low attack complexity (AC:L), requiring privileges (PR:L), no user interaction (UI:N), unchanged scope (S:U), and high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:H/I:H/A:H). This suggests that exploitation can be performed remotely over the network by an authenticated user with limited privileges, without any user interaction, and can lead to full compromise of the Jenkins environment. No known exploits in the wild have been reported yet, and no official patches are linked in the provided data, but the vulnerability was published on September 21, 2022. Given Jenkins' widespread use in continuous integration and deployment pipelines, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to organizations relying on automated build and deployment processes.

For European organizations, the impact of this vulnerability can be substantial. Jenkins is widely used across industries in Europe for software development automation, including in critical sectors such as finance, manufacturing, telecommunications, and government. Exploitation could allow an attacker with minimal privileges to trigger arbitrary jobs, potentially leading to unauthorized code execution, deployment of malicious software, data leakage, or disruption of services. This could compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of software supply chains and internal systems. Given the high impact on all three security pillars and the ease of exploitation, organizations could face operational downtime, reputational damage, regulatory penalties under GDPR if personal data is compromised, and increased risk of lateral movement within networks. The lack of user interaction requirement and network accessibility of the vulnerable endpoint further increase the risk of automated or targeted attacks. Additionally, the vulnerability could be leveraged in supply chain attacks, which are of particular concern in Europe due to stringent cybersecurity regulations and the critical nature of software infrastructure.

European organizations should take immediate and specific actions beyond generic patching advice: 1) Restrict access to the Jenkins Rundeck Plugin webhook endpoint (/plugin/rundeck/webhook/) by implementing network-level controls such as IP whitelisting or VPN-only access to Jenkins servers. 2) Review and tighten Jenkins user permissions, ensuring that Overall/Read permissions are granted only to trusted users and service accounts. 3) Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all Jenkins users to reduce the risk of credential compromise. 4) Monitor Jenkins logs for unusual job trigger activity, especially from users with limited privileges, and set up alerts for anomalous webhook requests. 5) If possible, upgrade the Jenkins Rundeck Plugin to a version that addresses this vulnerability once available, or apply vendor-provided patches promptly. 6) Employ runtime application self-protection (RASP) or web application firewalls (WAF) to detect and block unauthorized webhook invocations. 7) Conduct internal audits of Jenkins job configurations to identify and restrict jobs that are unnecessarily triggerable via Rundeck webhooks. 8) Educate development and operations teams about the risks of excessive permissions and the importance of secure plugin configurations.