GHSA-7x97-j373-85x5 CVE-2023-39956
Electron vulnerable to out-of-package code execution when launched with arbitrary cwd
- Severity
- 6.1 / 10
- Medium · CVSS 3.1
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 0.49%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 42.22% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-94 Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
- Fix
22.3.19- Upgrade electron to this version or later
Description
Impact
Apps that are launched as command line executables are impacted. E.g. if your app exposes itself in the path as myapp --help
Specifically this issue can only be exploited if the following conditions are met:
- Your app is launched with an attacker-controlled working directory
- The attacker has the ability to write files to that working directory
This makes the risk quite low, in fact normally issues of this kind are considered outside of our threat model as similar to Chromium we exclude Physically Local Attacks but given the ability for this issue to bypass certain protections like ASAR Integrity it is being treated with higher importance. Please bear this in mind when reporting similar issues in the future.
Workarounds
There are no app side workarounds, you must update to a patched version of Electron.
Fixed Versions
26.0.0-beta.1325.5.024.7.123.3.1322.3.19
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, email us at security@electronjs.org
Affected versions
npm
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| electron | < 22.3.19 |
22.3.19 |
| electron | >= 23.0.0-alpha.1, < 23.3.13 |
23.3.13 |
| electron | >= 24.0.0-alpha.1, < 24.7.1 |
24.7.1 |
| electron | >= 25.0.0-alpha.1, < 25.5.0 |
25.5.0 |
| electron | >= 26.0.0-alpha.1, < 26.0.0-beta.13 |
26.0.0-beta.13 |
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.
electron npm → 22.3.19
- npm
npm install electron@22.3.19- yarn
yarn add electron@22.3.19- pnpm
pnpm add electron@22.3.19
Severity breakdown
CVSS 3.1 6.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:L
- Attack vector
- Local
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- Low
Weakness
CWE-94: Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
The product constructs all or part of a code segment using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the syntax or behavior of the intended code segment.
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design: Refactor your program so that you do not have to dynamically generate code.
- Architecture and Design: Run your code in a "jail" or similar sandbox environment that enforces strict boundaries between the process and the operating system. This may effectively restrict which code can be executed by your product. Examples include the Unix chroot jail and AppArmor. In general, managed code may provide some protection. This may not be a feasible solution, and it only limits the impact to the operating system; the rest of your application may still be subject to compromise. Be careful to avoid CWE-243 and other weaknesses related to jails.
- Implementation: Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does. When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, "boat" may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as "red" or "blue." Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code's environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright. To reduce the likelihood of code injection, use stringent allowlists that limit which constructs are allowed. If you are dynamically constructing code that invokes a function, then verifying that the input is alphanumeric might be insufficient. An attacker might still be able to reference a dangerous function that you did not intend to allow, such as system(), exec(), or exit().
- Testing: Use dynamic tools and techniques that interact with the product using large test suites with many diverse inputs, such as fuzz testing (fuzzing), robustness testing, and fault injection. The product's operation may slow down, but it should not become unstable, crash, or generate incorrect results.
- Operation: Run the code in an environment that performs automatic taint propagation and prevents any command execution that uses tainted variables, such as Perl's "-T" switch. This will force the program to perform validation steps that remove the taint, although you must be careful to correctly validate your inputs so that you do not accidentally mark dangerous inputs as untainted (see CWE-183 and CWE-184).
- Operation: Run the code in an environment that performs automatic taint propagation and prevents any command execution that uses tainted variables, such as Perl's "-T" switch. This will force the program to perform validation steps that remove the taint, although you must be careful to correctly validate your inputs so that you do not accidentally mark dangerous inputs as untainted (see CWE-183 and CWE-184).
- Implementation: For Python programs, it is frequently encouraged to use the ast.literal_eval() function instead of eval, since it is intentionally designed to avoid executing code. However, an adversary could still cause excessive memory or stack consumption via deeply nested structures [REF-1372], so the python documentation discourages use of ast.literal_eval() on untrusted data [REF-1373].
References
Advisories
Packages
Other links
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-qqvq-6xgj-jw8g Electron affected by libvpx's heap buffer overflow in vp8 encoding | High Known exploited | Also affects electron |
| GHSA-j7hp-h8jx-5ppr libwebp: OOB write in BuildHuffmanTable | High Known exploited | Also affects electron |
| GHSA-995f-9x5r-2rcj Heap buffer overflow in GPU | Critical Known exploited | Also affects electron |
| GHSA-jr5w-w6x2-84p9 Electron: Mitigation for compromised eMudhra intermediate certificates | High | Also affects electron |
| GHSA-h3v5-h239-pg29 Electron: Off-screen rendering on macOS trusts GPU-supplied frame geometry | Low | Also affects electron |
| GHSA-3qxv-5xgr-q7w9 Electron: Frame subscription trusts GPU-supplied frame geometry | Low | Also affects electron |
| GHSA-997q-gvvc-jwmx Electron: openExternal permission requests can be attributed to the wrong origin | Medium | Also affects electron |
| GHSA-fw47-9c62-h3vw Electron: HID and USB permission checks can be attributed to the wrong origin | Medium | Also affects electron |
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