CVE-2026-41081: Improper Handling of TLS Client Authentication Failure Leading to Anonymous Principal Assignment in Apache Storm Versions Affected: up to 2.8.7 Description…

PriorityP340medium6.5CVSS 3.1

AVNACLPRNUINSUCLILAN

EPSS

0.29%

20.7th percentile

Improper Handling of TLS Client Authentication Failure Leading to Anonymous Principal Assignment in Apache Storm Versions Affected: up to 2.8.7 Description: When TLS transport is enabled in Apache Storm without requiring client certificate authentication (the default configuration), the TlsTransportPlugin assigns a fallback principal (CN=ANONYMOUS) if no client certificate is presented or if certificate verification fails. The underlying SSLPeerUnverifiedException is caught and suppressed rather than rejecting the connection. This fail-open behavior means an unauthenticated client can establish a TLS connection and receive a valid principal identity. If the configured authorizer (e.g., SimpleACLAuthorizer) does not explicitly deny access to CN=ANONYMOUS, this may result in unauthorized access to Storm services. The condition is logged at debug level only, reducing visibility in production. Impact: Unauthenticated clients may be assigned a principal identity, potentially bypassing authorization in permissive or misconfigured environments. Mitigation: Users should upgrade to 2.8.7 in which TLS authentication failures are handled in a fail-closed manner. Users who cannot upgrade immediately should: - Enable mandatory client certificate authentication (nimbus.thrift.tls.client.auth.required: true) - Ensure authorization rules explicitly deny access to CN=ANONYMOUS - Review all ACL configurations for implicit default-allow behavior

Affected

2 ranges

Vendor	Product	Version range	Fixed in
apache	storm	< 2.8.7	2.8.7
apache_software_foundation	apache_storm_client	< 2.8.7	2.8.7

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