CVE-2024-5204Discovered Published
Swiss Toolkit admin auth bypass
View patch bundle on GitHubFull published report
The reviewed summary below describes the scope of the fixture testing.
Swiss Toolkit admin auth bypass (CVE-2024-5204)
cve.now entry. Product: Swiss Toolkit
WordPress toolkit (lab: gabriel-swisstoolkit-app).
Eden terminates the HTTP connection to the affected product, evaluates a declarative policy and — in tier 2 — a separately compiled native Rust module under signed module authority, before any byte reaches the application. It does not patch the affected component; the vendor's fixed release remains the durable repair.
Status: Remediated (tier 1 + tier 2), live-proven 2026-11-11T16:47:03Z on the
installed eden-product-release:1.103.0 lab container.
The vulnerability
The Swiss Toolkit admin AJAX endpoint trusts a caller-supplied token
parameter as authentication. The fixture (make_swisstoolkit) reproduces the
shape: a request carrying ?token=bad records an auth-bypass mark.
The Eden patch
Tier 1 — declarative policy (blunt, fail-closed): deny every request under
/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php, ordinary AJAX actions included — false positives
measured below.
Tier 2 — native Rust module gabriel_swisstoolkit_v1 (surgical): refuses
requests whose target carries a token= parameter (the forged-credential
primitive); ordinary AJAX actions (?action=dashboard) pass unchanged.
Measured comparison (fixtures9, run 2026-11-11)
| Probe | Baseline | Tier 1 | Tier 2 (module) | Backend effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
benign AJAX call ?action=dashboard | 200 | 403 (false positive) | 200 | none |
attack: forged token ?token=bad | 200 (auth_bypassed recorded) | 403 | 403 | blocked at tier 2 |
Performance trace (Eden telemetry, live 2026-11-11)
Measured with Eden's built-in request telemetry (gateway.request.baseline
spans, read back through /api/v1/analytics/telemetry?signal=traces), not
client wall-clock. Latency Eden introduces per remediation arm for this case:
| Arm | n | mean | p50 | p95 | min–max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 — declarative policy, blocked request (403) | 15 | 26 µs | 23 µs | 46 µs | 14 µs–46 µs |
| Tier 2 — native module, benign passes through (200) | 23 | 315 µs | 281 µs | 499 µs | 256 µs–657 µs |
| Tier 2 — native module, attack refused (403) | 14 | 134 µs | 123 µs | 222 µs | 105 µs–222 µs |
Eden-added latency for the tier-2 remediation: benign requests complete in 315 µs mean (p50 281 µs, p95 499 µs) in-product, module evaluation included. Honest scope: lab fixtures on one host, fresh connection per measured request, warm requests only; module reactivated shards 2/2 with a fresh signed statement per measurement; spans carry the full authority lineage (module SHA-256, operation, publication). Not the EDEN-3640 performance qualification contract.
Tested against: eden-product-release:1.103.0-single (image sha256:809293e1f0b525ac…, build target
eden_service_single, tooling revision 81a0724a…). Raw data:
module2/telemetry-ab/swisstoolkit-telemetry.json and module2/tier1-ab/swisstoolkit-tier1.json.
Authority lifecycle and negatives
Import 201, activation: explicit_required; publisher enroll_key, host
inventory + approve, reader inspect refused 403; tampered-statement admit
400; invalid-signature admit 403; admit prepared (not serving), activate
→ receipt serving_now, applied shards 2/2. Revoke → the identical attack
gets 503 (fail-closed); re-approve + re-activate → 403 again. All recorded
in the evidence JSON.
Honest scope
The fixture reproduces the weak-token shape, not the full Swiss Toolkit
surface. Bypass variants (cookie/session hybrids, alternate parameters) are
not bypass-tested; the rule is a lab-grade partial. Module binary SHA-256
7c5e93c6…, source modules/gabriel_swisstoolkit_v1.rs.
Cost record
Run window 16:47:03Z → 16:47:13Z (per-CVE ledger, marginal session cost).
Evidence appendix
- Fixture:
gabriel-2026-11-11/fixtures9.py(make_swisstoolkit, port 18302) - Evidence:
gabriel-2026-11-11/module2/evidence/swisstoolkit-module.json - Module source:
docs/case-studies/modules/gabriel_swisstoolkit_v1.rs
The vulnerability
The Swiss Toolkit admin AJAX endpoint trusts a caller-supplied token
parameter as authentication. The fixture (make_swisstoolkit) reproduces the
shape: a request carrying ?token=bad records an auth-bypass mark.
The Eden patch
Tier 1 — declarative policy (blunt, fail-closed): deny every request under
/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php, ordinary AJAX actions included — false positives
measured below.
Tier 2 — native Rust module gabriel_swisstoolkit_v1 (surgical): refuses
requests whose target carries a token= parameter (the forged-credential
primitive); ordinary AJAX actions (?action=dashboard) pass unchanged.
Measured comparison (fixtures9, run 2026-11-11)
| Probe | Baseline | Tier 1 | Tier 2 (module) | Backend effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
benign AJAX call ?action=dashboard | 200 | 403 (false positive) | 200 | none |
attack: forged token ?token=bad | 200 (auth_bypassed recorded) | 403 | 403 | blocked at tier 2 |
Performance trace (Eden telemetry, live 2026-11-11)
Measured with Eden's built-in request telemetry (gateway.request.baseline
spans, read back through /api/v1/analytics/telemetry?signal=traces), not
client wall-clock. Latency Eden introduces per remediation arm for this case:
| Arm | n | mean | p50 | p95 | min–max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 — declarative policy, blocked request (403) | 15 | 26 µs | 23 µs | 46 µs | 14 µs–46 µs |
| Tier 2 — native module, benign passes through (200) | 23 | 315 µs | 281 µs | 499 µs | 256 µs–657 µs |
| Tier 2 — native module, attack refused (403) | 14 | 134 µs | 123 µs | 222 µs | 105 µs–222 µs |
Authority lifecycle and negatives
Import 201, activation: explicit_required; publisher enroll_key, host
inventory + approve, reader inspect refused 403; tampered-statement admit
400; invalid-signature admit 403; admit prepared (not serving), activate
→ receipt serving_now, applied shards 2/2. Revoke → the identical attack
gets 503 (fail-closed); re-approve + re-activate → 403 again. All recorded
in the evidence JSON.
Honest scope
The fixture reproduces the weak-token shape, not the full Swiss Toolkit
surface. Bypass variants (cookie/session hybrids, alternate parameters) are
not bypass-tested; the rule is a lab-grade partial. Module binary SHA-256
7c5e93c6…, source modules/gabriel_swisstoolkit_v1.rs.
Cost record
Run window 16:47:03Z → 16:47:13Z (per-CVE ledger, marginal session cost).