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DIRAC: Pilot code downloaded over unverified HTTPS connection

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jul 13, 2026 in DIRACGrid/DIRAC • Updated Jul 13, 2026

Package

pip DIRAC (pip)

Affected versions

>= 6.20.1, < 8.0.79
>= 8.1.0a1, < 9.0.22
>= 9.1.0, < 9.1.10

Patched versions

8.0.79
9.0.22
9.1.10

Description

Summary

The second stage pilot (pilot.tar) is downloaded by the initial wrapper script without any verification of the webservers' SSL certificate and the contained script is subsequently executed. The checksum is tested, but the reference checksum file is downloaded over the same unvalidated channel.

Details

The pilot wrapper downloads and executes the main second stage pilot script, but the SSL validation on this connection is explicitly disabled (to match old python < 2.7.9 behaviour):
https://github.com/DIRACGrid/DIRAC/blob/integration/src/DIRAC/WorkloadManagementSystem/Utilities/PilotWrapper.py#L292-L296

This means that the second stage pilot code is not verified in any way and could potentially be altered by a man-in-the-middle attack to execute arbitrary code in the pilot context (i.e. with access to the pilot proxy/credentials).

The HTTPS connection should be validated against both the system certificates and $X509_CERT_DIR and fail if neither validate correctly.

Impact

This would require a man-in-the-middle style attack against a grid site's network (i.e. changing the DNS or routing to redirect the pilot's connection); this is likely to be difficult which probably limits the potential impact.

Patched versions:

https://pypi.org/project/DIRAC/8.0.79/
https://pypi.org/project/DIRAC/9.0.22/
https://pypi.org/project/DIRAC/9.1.10/

References

@fstagni fstagni published to DIRACGrid/DIRAC Jul 13, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jul 13, 2026
Reviewed Jul 13, 2026
Last updated Jul 13, 2026

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS score

Weaknesses

Improper Certificate Validation

The product does not validate, or incorrectly validates, a certificate. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2026-61668

GHSA ID

GHSA-vg99-gr89-qhw9

Source code

Credits

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