Bitnami Pgpool and Postgres-HA Unauthenticated Database Access Vulnerability

A vulnerability exists in the Bitnami Pgpool Docker image and the Bitnami Postgres-HA Kubernetes Helm chart, both under default configurations. They include a 'repmgr' user that allows unauthenticated access to the database within the cluster. The 'PGPOOL_SR_CHECK_USER' is utilized by Pgpool for streaming replication checks and should not be set to trust level. This misconfiguration enables logging into a PostgreSQL database using the 'repmgr' user without authentication. If Pgpool is exposed externally, an attacker could potentially access the service. This issue is present in Bitnami Pgpool II versions prior to 4.6.0-1 (included in the container image 4.6.0-debian-12-r8) and in Bitnami Postgres-HA Helm chart versions prior to 16.0.0.

Impact

Exploitation allows for unauthenticated access to the PostgreSQL database, potentially leading to unauthorized actions within the database or disruption of services that rely on the database.

Remediation

Users are advised to upgrade Bitnami Pgpool II to version 4.6.0-1 or later (container image 4.6.0-debian-12-r8). For the Bitnami Postgres-HA Helm chart, upgrade to version 16.0.0 or later.