CVE-2016-7070

Vulnerability

Ansible Tower before version 3.0.3 incorrectly configures the trust level for the postgres user when deploying a PostgreSQL database. This misconfiguration allows an attacker to gain admin-level access to the database. The affected versions are all Ansible Tower releases prior to 3.0.3.

Exploitation

An attacker with network access to the PostgreSQL database can exploit the overly permissive trust level. No authentication is required beyond the ability to connect as the postgres user. The attacker can then execute arbitrary SQL commands, effectively gaining full control over the database.

Impact

Successful exploitation grants the attacker administrative privileges on the PostgreSQL database, leading to complete compromise of the database contents. This can result in data exfiltration, modification, or deletion, and may undermine the security of the entire Ansible Tower installation.

Mitigation

The vulnerability is fixed in Ansible Tower version 3.0.3 and later. Users should upgrade to at least 3.0.3 as soon as possible. The release notes [1] provide details on the fix. No workarounds are documented; upgrading is the recommended mitigation.