Sonatype Nexus Repository 3.77.2: known vulnerabilities

A user holding a permission to update privilege definitions could modify a wildcard privilege already assigned to their own role to grant broader permissions than they were authorized to hold, including full administrative access, without any additional authorization check or role reassignment.

A vulnerability in the task management component of Sonatype Nexus Repository versions 3.22.1 through 3.90.2 allows an authenticated attacker with task creation permissions to execute arbitrary code, bypassing the nexus.scripts.allowCreation security control.

A vulnerability in Sonatype Nexus Repository Manager's format-specific API key generation may allow a remote attacker to gain unauthorized access to repository operations as a targeted user. A format-specific API key realm (NuGet API Key, Docker Bearer Token, or npm Bearer Token) must be enabled and the targeted user must have an active API key for this vulnerability to be exploitable.

Sonatype Nexus Repository 3 did not immediately terminate a user's active login session or revoke their cached permissions when that user's account was deleted, deactivated, or had its password changed. A user whose account was already logged in at the time of one of these actions could continue using their existing session to interact with the repository as though the account were still active, until that session independently expired. Depending on the permissions previously held, this could allow continued unauthorized access to read, modify, or delete repository content after access was intended to be revoked.

Nexus Repository 3 did not sufficiently restrict which HikariCP connection-pool properties could be set through the DataStore configuration API. A user holding the nx-datastores-update permission could set the connectionInitSql property to execute arbitrary SQL against the configured database on every new connection. On the default H2 database backend, this could be leveraged to achieve remote code execution as the Nexus process user.

An authenticated user with the nx-licensing-create privilege can upload a specially crafted license file to execute arbitrary operating system commands as the Nexus process user in Sonatype Nexus Repository 3 versions before 3.92.0.

Nexus Repository 3 contained a privilege escalation vulnerability in the REST privileges API. An authenticated user with permission to manage privileges could, under certain role configurations, escalate their own access to full administrator by exploiting a type-confusion flaw in the privilege update endpoint.

Nexus Repository 3 CE/Pro versions 3.0.0 through 3.94.x contain an incorrect authorization vulnerability (CWE-863) in the repository-creation user interface. An individual user account holding a delegated repository-admin privilege scoped to a specific repository format could create a repository of a different, unauthorized format, because authorization was checked against one request field while a separate, attacker-controlled field determined the repository format actually created. This does not affect the anonymous user, which cannot hold this privilege by default. Fixed in version 3.95.0.

A remote unauthenticated attacker may be able to conduct credential-guessing attacks against user accounts in Sonatype Nexus Repository via authentication endpoints.

In affected versions of Nexus Repository 3, the script execution endpoint (POST /service/rest/v1/script/{name}/run) did not verify whether script execution had been administratively disabled. An account holding script-execution permission could continue to run previously-created scripts even after an administrator set nexus.scripts.allowCreation=false, undermining the expectation that this setting fully blocks script execution.

An account holding the nexus:settings:update permission in Nexus Repository 3 (or the equivalent nexus:settings permission in the legacy Nexus Repository 2) could submit arbitrary values as realm identifiers through an internal configuration API that did not validate them against the set of registered realms. Because unrecognized entries were persisted and re-evaluated on every realm load via a legacy code path, this could result in unintended code executing inside the Nexus Repository process, and in some cases a persistent authentication lockout that was not visible through the administrative UI.

A vulnerability was identified in Sonatype Nexus Repository 3 in which two blobstore group management REST API endpoints did not correctly enforce the intended authorization check. A user granted only the nexus:blobstores:create permission could invoke these endpoints to convert an existing blobstore into a group blobstore, an action that should require the nexus:blobstores:update permission instead. This could result in unauthorized modification of blobstore configuration without administrator approval. The nexus:blobstores:create permission is a named permission that must be explicitly granted by an administrator; it is not held by default.

Nexus Repository 3 contained an endpoint used to change the administrator account password during initial onboarding. This endpoint did not verify that onboarding was still in progress before allowing the password change, relying instead on the presence of a local onboarding artifact. As a result, an account holding the nexus:* permission could invoke the endpoint outside the intended onboarding flow to replace the administrator password, and existing sessions were not invalidated after the change.

Nexus Repository 3 was found to be vulnerable to stored cross-site scripting (XSS). A user with the nexus:blobstores:create or nexus:blobstores:update permission could set a blob store name containing malicious script content, which would later execute in the browser of another user viewing system health-check status. This issue has been fixed in version 3.95.0.

Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in Sonatype Nexus Repository 3 versions 3.0.0 and later allows authenticated administrators to configure proxy repositories with URLs that can access unintended network destinations, potentially including cloud metadata services and internal network resources. A workaround configuration is available starting in version 3.88.0, but the product remains vulnerable by default.

A reflected cross-site scripting vulnerability exists in Sonatype Nexus Repository versions 3.0.0 through 3.90.2 that allows unauthenticated remote attackers to execute arbitrary JavaScript in a victim's browser through a specially crafted URL. Exploitation requires user interaction.

Nexus Repository 3 contains a sensitive information disclosure vulnerability in the capability read API. An account holding the nexus:capabilities:read privilege can retrieve the plaintext shared secret configured on a webhook capability, which is intended to be masked from all API responses. This issue affects Nexus Repository 3 versions 3.2.0 through 3.95.x, and is fixed in version 3.96.0.

Nexus Repository 3 did not fully sandbox JEXL expressions used in Content Selectors. An account holding the nexus:selectors:create permission could construct an expression that read Java object properties not intended to be exposed to the expression engine, disclosing internal JVM class metadata such as class and classloader names. This issue does not permit method invocation, object construction, or arbitrary code execution. This has been fixed by restricting property access in the JEXL sandbox to the intended data types.

Nexus Repository 3 is vulnerable to Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) via the SSL Certificate Retrieval endpoint. A user holding the nexus:ssl-truststore:read permission could cause the server to initiate outbound connections to internal or otherwise restricted network hosts. This issue affects Nexus Repository 3.0.0 through versions prior to 3.94.0.

A user account with permission to deploy artifacts to a hosted Maven repository could upload a POM file containing an oversized metadata field. This causes future attempts to list or browse that repository's components to permanently fail until an administrator repairs the underlying data. Only the targeted repository is affected; other repositories and overall server health remain unaffected.

An authorization flaw in the REST API repository details endpoint (GET /service/rest/v1/repositories/{repositoryName}) in Sonatype Nexus Repository 3 allowed an account holding read or browse permission on a group repository to retrieve metadata for member repositories on which it held no direct permission, by requesting the endpoint directly for the member repository name. For proxy repositories, the disclosed metadata includes the configured remote URL, which may reveal internal upstream hostnames. This includes the anonymous user if it has been granted this permission; whether the anonymous user holds this permission depends on the role and permission configuration of the specific installation.

Nexus Repository 3 does not validate the destination of the "Webhook: Global" capability's configured URL before making an outbound HTTP request, allowing a user holding the Capability Administration permission to cause the server to send requests to internal network locations (Server-Side Request Forgery). This permission is granted by role assignment, independent of authentication status, so an unauthenticated user could also trigger this behavior if the anonymous role has been granted the permission.

Nexus Repository 3 contains a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in the email configuration verification feature. A user holding the nexus:settings:update permission could submit arbitrary host and port values to the email test/verification endpoint, causing the server to attempt outbound network connections to internal or otherwise restricted network addresses. Differences in the server's response could be used to infer whether internal hosts and ports are reachable. This issue affects Nexus Repository 3 CE/Pro versions up to and including 3.94.1, and is fixed in version 3.95.0.

An authenticated administrator who configures or tests LDAP connectivity in Sonatype Nexus Repository Manager versions 3.0.0 through 3.91.1 may be able to initiate unintended server-side connections when interacting with a malicious LDAP server.

An authenticated user with upload permission to a hosted repository can store content that causes arbitrary JavaScript to execute in the browser of any user who browses that repository directory via the HTML index page in Sonatype Nexus Repository versions 3.6.0 through versions before 3.92.0. This could allow the attacker to perform actions in the context of the victim's session.

Sonatype Nexus Repository Manager before 3.93.0 contains an authorization vulnerability in the proxy repository configuration that allows a delegated repository administrator to disclose stored upstream proxy credentials.

Nexus Repository 3 did not apply its existing Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) protections to HTTP redirect targets returned by proxy repository upstream servers. Any user with read access to a proxy repository backed by an attacker-controlled or compromised upstream server - including an anonymous user, if anonymous access is enabled - could receive a response from an internal network address or cloud metadata endpoint as repository content, potentially exposing sensitive information such as cloud IAM credentials.