CVE-2023-6725 identifies an insufficient granularity of access control vulnerability within the Red Hat OpenStack Platform 17.1 for RHEL 8, specifically in the Designate service component responsible for DNS management. The vulnerability arises because private configuration files, including sensitive BIND access keys, are set with overly permissive file permissions, making them world-readable inside the containerized environment. This misconfiguration allows any user or process with access to any container on the platform to read these sensitive credentials. Since the access vector requires local access to a container (AV:L) and low privileges (PR:L), an attacker who has compromised or gained access to any container can escalate their information gathering by extracting these keys. The vulnerability does not require user interaction (UI:N) and impacts confidentiality heavily (C:H), with limited impact on integrity (I:L) and availability (A:L). The scope remains unchanged (S:U), meaning the vulnerability affects only the container where the flaw exists. Although no exploits have been reported in the wild, the exposure of DNS access keys could facilitate further attacks such as DNS hijacking or unauthorized DNS record modifications. The vulnerability was published on March 15, 2024, and no patches or exploit code are currently publicly available. Organizations using this OpenStack version should prioritize reviewing container file permissions and access controls to prevent unauthorized information disclosure.

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to confidentiality by exposing sensitive DNS configuration credentials, which could be leveraged to manipulate DNS records, redirect traffic, or facilitate man-in-the-middle attacks. This is particularly critical for enterprises and service providers relying on Red Hat OpenStack Platform 17.1 for hosting cloud infrastructure or DNS services. The limited integrity and availability impacts mean that while direct service disruption is unlikely, the compromise of DNS keys can indirectly lead to service outages or data interception. The requirement for local container access limits the attack surface but does not eliminate risk, especially in multi-tenant or shared environments common in cloud deployments. Organizations with containerized workloads or those that allow broad container access are at higher risk. The absence of known exploits reduces immediate threat but should not lead to complacency. The medium severity rating suggests prioritization in patch management and access control audits to prevent potential lateral movement and data leakage within cloud environments.

1. Immediately audit and restrict file permissions on all configuration files within OpenStack Designate containers to ensure sensitive keys are not world-readable. 2. Implement strict container access controls and segmentation to limit the number of users or processes that can access containers, reducing the risk of lateral movement. 3. Monitor container logs and access patterns for unusual activity that could indicate attempts to access sensitive files. 4. Apply any vendor-provided patches or updates as soon as they become available from Red Hat. 5. Use secrets management solutions to handle sensitive credentials instead of storing them in configuration files with broad permissions. 6. Conduct regular security reviews of container configurations and OpenStack components to detect and remediate misconfigurations. 7. Employ network segmentation and zero-trust principles within cloud environments to minimize the impact of container compromise. 8. Educate administrators and DevOps teams on the importance of least privilege and secure configuration practices for containerized services.