GHSA-5v4m-c73v-c7gq CVE-2017-1000053
Arbitrary Code Execution in Cookie Serialization
- Severity
- 8.1 / 10
- High · CVSS 3.1
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 1.93%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 80.05% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-502 Deserialization of Untrusted Data
- Fix
1.0.4- Upgrade plug to this version or later
Description
The default serialization used by Plug session may result in code execution in certain situations. Keep in mind, however, the session cookie is signed and this attack can only be exploited if the attacker has access to your secret key as well as your signing/encryption salts. We recommend users to change their secret key base and salts if they suspect they have been leaked, regardless of this vulnerability.
Affected versions
Hex
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| plug | < 1.0.4 |
1.0.4 |
| plug | >= 1.1.0, < 1.1.7 |
1.1.7 |
| plug | >= 1.2.0, < 1.2.3 |
1.2.3 |
| plug | >= 1.3.0, < 1.3.2 |
1.3.2 |
How to fix
Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.
plug Hex → 1.0.4
- mix
{:plug, "~> 1.0.4"} # then: mix deps.update plug
Severity breakdown
CVSS 3.1 8.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- High
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
Weakness
CWE-502: Deserialization of Untrusted Data
The product deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently ensuring that the resulting data will be valid.
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design, Implementation: If available, use the signing/sealing features of the programming language to assure that deserialized data has not been tainted. For example, a hash-based message authentication code (HMAC) could be used to ensure that data has not been modified.
- Implementation: When deserializing data, populate a new object rather than just deserializing. The result is that the data flows through safe input validation and that the functions are safe.
- Implementation: Explicitly define a final object() to prevent deserialization.
- Architecture and Design, Implementation: Make fields transient to protect them from deserialization. An attempt to serialize and then deserialize a class containing transient fields will result in NULLs where the transient data should be. This is an excellent way to prevent time, environment-based, or sensitive variables from being carried over and used improperly.
- Implementation: Avoid having unnecessary types or gadgets (a sequence of instances and method invocations that can self-execute during the deserialization process, often found in libraries) available that can be leveraged for malicious ends. This limits the potential for unintended or unauthorized types and gadgets to be leveraged by the attacker. Add only acceptable classes to an allowlist. Note: new gadgets are constantly being discovered, so this alone is not a sufficient mitigation.
- Architecture and Design, Implementation: Employ cryptography of the data or code for protection. However, it's important to note that it would still be client-side security. This is risky because if the client is compromised then the security implemented on the client (the cryptography) can be bypassed.
- Operation: Use an application firewall that can detect attacks against this weakness. It can be beneficial in cases in which the code cannot be fixed (because it is controlled by a third party), as an emergency prevention measure while more comprehensive software assurance measures are applied, or to provide defense in depth [REF-1481].
References
Advisories
Packages
Other links
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| EEF-CVE-2026-105963 Secret key base exposed in stack trace arguments on wrong-typed Plug.Crypto arguments | Not rated yet | Also affects plug |
| EEF-CVE-2026-56813 Cookie attribute injection in Plug.Conn.Cookies.encode/2 | Not rated yet | Also affects plug |
| EEF-CVE-2026-56814 Plug: multipart :length limit is not charged for part headers, enabling unbounded temp-file creation (denial of service) | Not rated yet | Also affects plug |
| EEF-CVE-2026-54892 Plug: quadratic-time decoding of nested query/body parameters enables denial of service | High | Also affects plug |
| EEF-CVE-2026-8468 Unbounded buffer accumulation in multipart header parsing causes denial of service in plug | High | Also affects plug |
| GHSA-9h73-w7ch-rh73 Header Injection | Medium | Also affects plug |
| GHSA-2q6v-32mr-8p8x Null Byte Injection in Plug.Static | High | Also affects plug |
| CVE-2026-110879 jackson-databind validates the outer class of a class-name type ID but accepts attacker-selected classes inside its generic arguments, even when those classes… | Critical | Same weakness, CWE-502 |
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