CVE-2024-38206: the Copilot Studio SSRF flaw

What CVE-2024-38206 is

CVE-2024-38206 is a vulnerability record for Microsoft Copilot Studio. The NVD entry and Microsoft's advisory both say that an authenticated attacker can bypass Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) protection in Microsoft Copilot Studio to leak sensitive information over a network.

Microsoft is the assigning CNA, and its advisory is titled "Microsoft Copilot Studio Information Disclosure Vulnerability." The NVD entry has since been revised. The NVD page says this CVE record has been updated after NVD enrichment efforts were completed.

That one description sentence is all either document says in prose about the flaw itself. The rest of the record is scoring data, definitions of the scoring terms, and a note on remediation.

What the record says about the bypass

The question of how attackers reached internal hosts cannot be answered from these two documents. The phrase "internal hosts" does not appear in either one. Neither document names the endpoints that could be reached, the request that carried the bypass, the protection that was bypassed, or the data that leaked.

What the documents do establish is narrow. Copilot Studio had SSRF protection. A user who was already authenticated could get around it. The result was the disclosure of sensitive information over a network. Anything beyond that, including the exact mechanism, would be guesswork, and this page does not supply it.

The scoring data gives some indirect detail about the shape of the flaw. The next two sections go through it.

How the flaw was scored

Microsoft's advisory gives a CVSS 3.1 base score of 8.5 and a temporal score of 7.4.

The NVD page shows two scores side by side. NVD's own analysis lists 6.5 (Medium), with vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N. The score from Microsoft as CNA is 8.5 (High), with vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N. The NVD page itself flags the gap between the two.

Comparing the two vector strings on the NVD page shows where they differ. NVD scores scope as unchanged (S:U) and integrity impact as none (I:N). Microsoft scores scope as changed (S:C) and integrity impact as low (I:L). The other metrics match. Both rate network attack vector, low complexity, low privileges required, no user interaction and high confidentiality impact. Neither document explains why the scores differ.

What the metrics say about the attacker and the reach

Microsoft's advisory defines each metric value it assigned. Taken together, these definitions describe who could exploit the flaw and what they could affect.

Attack vector: Network. The advisory defines this value this way.

Attack complexity: Low. The definition says the conditions that make exploitation harder were absent.

Privileges required: Low. This matches the word "authenticated" in the description. The advisory's definition of Low is as follows.

User interaction: None. The advisory defines this value as follows.

Scope: Changed. This is the closest the record comes to describing reach beyond the service. In Microsoft's scoring, the advisory defines Changed this way. The advisory adds that in this case the vulnerable component and the impacted component are managed by different security authorities. It does not say which resources fall outside the vulnerable component's scope.

Confidentiality: High. The advisory's definition of High includes a case where the data is limited but serious.

Integrity: Low. Microsoft's definition of this value is as follows.

Availability: None. The advisory defines this value as follows.

Fix and exploitation status

Microsoft's advisory puts the fix on its side of the service. The advisory's headline note on remediation reads as follows.

The FAQ explains why the advisory has no update links or steps. It says this vulnerability has already been fully mitigated by Microsoft. It states that the purpose of the CVE is transparency. It points readers to a Microsoft page titled "Toward greater transparency: Unveiling Cloud Service CVEs."

The temporal metrics add three details. Exploit code maturity is Unproven, which the advisory defines in these words. Remediation level is Official Fix, which the advisory describes this way. Report confidence is Confirmed, which covers the case where the vendor has acknowledged the flaw.

The advisory credits Evan Grant, with Tenable, in its acknowledgements section. It adds this statement about coordinated disclosure.

What teams running AI agent platforms can take from the record

The record is short, so the lessons that follow directly from it are few. They are limited to what the two documents show.

First, the attacker did not need to be anonymous. The description says "authenticated," and Microsoft's scoring puts the privilege requirement at Low, meaning basic user capabilities. In this record, an account on the platform was the entry point.

Second, a protection that exists can still be bypassed. The record describes an SSRF protection in Copilot Studio that an authenticated attacker could get around. The documents do not say how.

Third, the result was an information disclosure, not a change to availability. Microsoft's scoring has high confidentiality impact, low integrity impact and no availability impact.

Fourth, in this case the customer had nothing to patch. Microsoft's advisory says no customer action is needed, because the flaw was fully mitigated in the service. The advisory gives no detection guidance, no configuration changes and no list of affected tenants or versions. The NVD lists the affected version for Microsoft Copilot Studio as N/A.

Fifth, two sources can score the same flaw differently. The NVD and Microsoft disagree on scope and integrity impact, which moves the base score from 6.5 to 8.5. A team that tracks this CVE in a risk register will see both numbers on the NVD page, and the vector strings show where they diverge.

The record leaves several questions open, and these two documents cannot settle them. They do not say which internal resources could be reached, what the leaked information contained, or whether anyone used the flaw against a real customer.