CVE-2026-40557
Severity CVSS v4.0:
Pending analysis
Type:
CWE-295
Improper Certificate Validation
Publication date:
27/04/2026
Last modified:
05/05/2026
Description
Improper Certificate Validation via Global SSL Context Downgrade in Apache Storm Prometheus Reporter<br />
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Versions Affected: from 2.6.3 to 2.8.6<br />
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Description: <br />
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In production deployments where an administrator enables storm.daemon.metrics.reporter.plugin.prometheus.skip_tls_validation (by default it is disabled) intending to affect only the Prometheus reporter, the undocumented global side effect creates an attack surface across every TLS-protected communication channel in the Storm daemon.<br />
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The PrometheusPreparableReporter class implements an INSECURE_TRUST_MANAGER that accepts all SSL certificates without validation, with empty checkClientTrusted and checkServerTrusted methods. Most critically, when the storm.daemon.metrics.reporter.plugin.prometheus.skip_tls_validation configuration option is enabled (default = disabled) for HTTPS Prometheus PushGateway connections, the INSECURE_CONNECTION_FACTORY calls SSLContext.setDefault(sslContext), which globally replaces the JVM&#39;s default SSL context rather than applying the insecure context only to the Prometheus connection. This payload flows through storm.yaml configuration → PrometheusPreparableReporter.prepare() → INSECURE_CONNECTION_FACTORY → SSLContext.setDefault(), resulting in a JVM-wide TLS security downgrade. All subsequent HTTPS connections in the process - including ZooKeeper, Thrift, Netty, and UI connections - silently trust all certificates, including self-signed, expired, and attacker-generated ones, enabling man-in-the-middle interception of cluster state, topology submissions, tuple data, and administrative credentials.<br />
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Mitigation: 2.x users should upgrade to 2.8.7 if the Prometheus Metrics Reporter is used. Prometheus Metrics Reporter Users who cannot upgrade immediately should remove the storm.daemon.metrics.reporter.plugin.prometheus.skip_tls_validation: true setting from their storm.yaml configuration and instead configure a proper truststore containing the PushGateway&#39;s certificate.
Impact
Base Score 3.x
4.80
Severity 3.x
MEDIUM
Vulnerable products and versions
| CPE | From | Up to |
|---|---|---|
| cpe:2.3:a:apache:storm_prometheus_reporter:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | 2.6.3 (including) | 2.8.7 (excluding) |
To consult the complete list of CPE names with products and versions, see this page



