Atlassian patches Jira authentication vulnerability

Atlassian has moved to plug a critical authentication bug in its Jira service management server and Jira data centre software.

According to the company’s advisory, CVE-2023-22501 affects version 5.3.0, 5.3.1, 5.3.2, 5.4.0, 5.4.1 and 5.5.0 of the products.

The issue is an authentication vulnerability that allows an attacker to impersonate a user to access a Jira service management instance. 

“With write access to a user directory and outgoing email enabled on a Jira service management instance, an attacker could gain access to signup tokens sent to users with accounts that have never been logged into,” Atlassian said.

The tokens can be obtained if the attacker is included on Jira issues or requests with legitimate users; or if the attacker accesses emails containing a “view request” link from a legitimate user.

The advisory said bot accounts are “particularly susceptible”. 

“On instances with single sign-on, external customer accounts can be affected in projects where anyone can create their own account,” the company said.

The issue is patched in Jira service management 5.3.3, 5.4.2, 5.5.1, and 5.6.0 or later.

If a customer can’t upgrade, they can apply a patch to the susceptible JAR file.