Root Access Not Disabled for Vertex AI Notebooks

ID: gcloud-vertexai-root-access

Severity: high

Author: princechaddha

Tags: cloud,devops,gcp,gcloud,vertexai,security,root-access,gcp-cloud-config

Description

Ensure that root access to your Google Cloud Vertex AI notebook instances is disabled in order to reduce the risk of accidental or malicious system damage by limiting administrative privileges within the instances. Disabling root access minimizes the risk of unauthorized modifications and helps maintain a more controlled and secure AI environment.

YAML Source

id: gcloud-vertexai-root-access

info:
  name: Root Access Not Disabled for Vertex AI Notebooks
  author: princechaddha
  severity: high
  description: |
    Ensure that root access to your Google Cloud Vertex AI notebook instances is disabled in order to reduce the risk of accidental or malicious system damage by limiting administrative privileges within the instances. Disabling root access minimizes the risk of unauthorized modifications and helps maintain a more controlled and secure AI environment.
  impact: |
    Allowing root access to Vertex AI notebook instances increases the risk of unauthorized modifications and potential misuse of superuser privileges. This could lead to system damage, data breaches, or compromise of the AI environment.
  remediation: |
    Disable root access for Vertex AI notebook instances using the 'gcloud workbench instances update' command with metadata parameter 'notebook-disable-root=true'. Note that instances must be stopped before updating this configuration.
  reference:
    - https://trendmicro.com/cloudoneconformity/knowledge-base/gcp/VertexAI/disable-root-access.html
    - https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/docs/workbench/user-managed/manage-instance
  tags: cloud,devops,gcp,gcloud,vertexai,security,root-access,gcp-cloud-config

flow: |
  code(1)
  for(let projectId of iterate(template.projectIds)){
    set("projectId", projectId)
    code(2)
  }

self-contained: true

code:
  - engine:
      - sh
      - bash
    source: |
      gcloud projects list --format="json(projectId)"

    extractors:
      - type: json
        name: projectIds
        internal: true
        json:
          - '.[].projectId'

  - engine:
      - sh
      - bash
    source: |
      gcloud workbench instances describe tm-vertex-ai-notebook-instance --location=us-central1-a --project=$projectId --format="yaml(gceSetup.metadata.notebook-disable-root)"

    matchers:
      - type: word
        words:
          - "null"

    extractors:
      - type: dsl
        dsl:
          - '"Project " + projectId + " has Vertex AI notebook instances with root access enabled"'
# digest: 4a0a0047304502203fafa09fd627295440cda0833154e362ad16f53551c11446c640eef34c1cd7e8022100a848ce9d7e2f458fe5454494e88df994cefe9ed2657c893fd8d7ac46091c6783:922c64590222798bb761d5b6d8e72950

Guide to check the vulnerabilities

This template is used to detect vulnerabilities in web applications. It can be used with the Nuclei tool to scan for specific patterns or behaviors.

$ nuclei -u "URL" -t "cloud/gcp/vertexai/gcloud-vertexai-root-access.yaml"

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