Medium · published September 14, 2026
Description
When ZooKeeper authentication is configured, Storm deliberately retains
`storm.zookeeper.topology.auth.payload` in the topology configuration, because workers need it. Nimbus then
served that configuration verbatim to any caller holding read-only topology permissions, so a user whose
only grant was the ability to view a topology received its ZooKeeper credential.
That credential is not read-only. The cluster state implementation uses write-capable ACLs for worker
heartbeats, backpressure and error state, so a recipient can forge or remove that state for the topology
concerned. It is not a write credential on assignments.
The same advisory covers the submission client, which logged the generated payload at INFO on every
submission that generated one, and the SASL handlers, which logged it at DEBUG. The credential therefore
also reached any log aggregation or support bundle collected from the cluster.
Mitigation
Upgrade to 3.1.0, where the payload is removed from the configuration served to read-only callers and is no
longer written to logs.
Users who cannot upgrade immediately should rotate `storm.zookeeper.topology.auth.payload` for existing
topologies, review retained logs and support bundles for the value, and restrict read-only topology
permissions to trusted principals.
Credit
The ASF -- found using Claude agents to study the security of open-source projects, validated and reported by Apache Storm.