How should we interpret CVSS severity scores?

CVSS estimates technical severity, but it does not automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, asset criticality, known exploitation, and whether compensating controls exist. A Medium CVSS on an exposed production system can be more urgent than a Critical on an isolated non-production host.

Vulnerability Database

Q: What is a Vulnerability (CVE) and why does it matter?

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

Q: What's the difference between a vulnerability, an exploit, and a zero-day?

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. Risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Q: Why do vulnerabilities keep reappearing in our environment?

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete asset discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host.

Q: How do we prioritize remediation without burning out the team?

Use a repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress so remediation is steady, not reactive.

Q: How can SynScan help reduce vulnerability risk over time?

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.

362,557

Total vulnerabilities in the database

SurrealDB vulnerable to Improper Authentication when Changing Databases as Scope User — surrealdb

Improper Authentication

Authentication would not be properly validated when an already authenticated scope user would use the use method or USE clause to switch working databases in a session. If there was a user record in the new database with identical record identifier as the original record that the user authenticated with in the original database, this could result in the user being able to perform actions under the identity of the unrelated user in the new database. This issue does not affect system users at any level.

By default, record identifiers are randomly generated with sufficient complexity to prevent the identifier collision required to trigger this issue. However, the issue may trigger in situations where multiple databases in the same SurrealDB instance are using explicitly defined or incremental record identifiers to identify users on an identically named table.

Impact

Under the circumstances described above, a user who has an authenticated session as a scope user in a database could become authorized to query data under the identity of a specific scope user associated with an identical record identifier in a different database within the same SurrealDB instace if the PERMISSIONS clause would allow it due to relying exclusively on the $auth parameter, which would point to the impersonated user. The impact is limited to the single user with matching record identifier.

The impact of this issue is mitigated if the table PERMISSIONS clause explicitly checks for an scope that only exists in the specific database (e.g. $scope = "production") or certain claims of the authentication token (e.g. $token.email = "[email protected]"), both of which would remain unchanged in the session of the authenticated user after changing databases. Permissions will default to NONE if there is no PERMISSIONS clause, which also mitigates this impact of this issue.

Patches

Version 1.5.4 and later are not affected by this issue.
Version 2.0.0-alpha.6 and later will not be affected by this issue.

Workarounds

Users unable to update may want to ensure that table PERMISSIONS clauses explicitly check that the $scope parameter matches a scope that is uniquely named across databases in the same SurrealDB instance. Ensuring that record identifiers for users are automatically generated or explicitly generated to be unique across databases may also be sufficient to mitigate this issue, as the $auth parameter will not link to any user record and any PERMISSIONS clauses restricting authorization based on the authenticated user should fail to successfully evaluate.

References

https://github.com/surrealdb/surrealdb/pull/4335

Published: Jul 11, 2024
Updated: Jul 12, 2024
GHSA: GHSA-gh9f-6xm2-c4j2
Severity: Medium
Exploit:
CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

Severity: Medium
Score: 6.3
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

CWEs:

CWE-287

OWASP TOP 10:

A2 - Broken Authentication

Affected Software
References

Software	From	Fixed in
surrealdb	-	1.5.4
surrealdb	2.0.0-alpha.1	2.0.0-alpha.6
surrealdb-core	-	1.5.1

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Vulnerability (CVE) and why does it matter?

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.