GHSA-f8cc-g7j8-xxpm CVE-2022-40151
XStream can cause a Denial of Service by injecting deeply nested objects raising a stack overflow
High
Maven
- Severity
- 7.5 / 10
- High · CVSS 3.1
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 2.22%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 82.69% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-121 Stack-based Buffer Overflow
- CWE-502 Deserialization of Untrusted Data
- CWE-787 Out-of-bounds Write
- Fix
1.4.20- Upgrade com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream to this version or later
Description
Impact
The vulnerability may allow a remote attacker to terminate the application with a stack overflow error resulting in a denial of service only by manipulating the processed input stream.
Patches
XStream 1.4.20 handles the stack overflow and raises an InputManipulationException instead.
Workarounds
The only solution is to catch the StackOverflowError in the client code calling XStream.
References
See full information about the nature of the vulnerability and the steps to reproduce it in XStream's documentation for CVE-2022-40151.
Credits
The vulnerability was discovered and reported by Henry Lin of the Google OSS-Fuzz team.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Open an issue in XStream
- Contact us at XStream Google Group
Affected versions
Maven
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream | < 1.4.20 |
1.4.20 |
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.
com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream Maven → 1.4.20
- maven
<dependency><groupId>com.thoughtworks.xstream</groupId><artifactId>xstream</artifactId><version>1.4.20</version></dependency>- gradle
implementation("com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream:1.4.20")
Severity breakdown
CVSS 3.1 7.5
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
Weakness
CWE-121: Stack-based Buffer Overflow
A stack-based buffer overflow condition is a condition where the buffer being overwritten is allocated on the stack (i.e., is a local variable or, rarely, a parameter to a function).
How to prevent it
- Operation, Build and Compilation: Use automatic buffer overflow detection mechanisms that are offered by certain compilers or compiler extensions. Examples include: the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag, Fedora/Red Hat FORTIFY_SOURCE GCC flag, StackGuard, and ProPolice, which provide various mechanisms including canary-based detection and range/index checking. D3-SFCV (Stack Frame Canary Validation) from D3FEND [REF-1334] discusses canary-based detection in detail.
- Architecture and Design: Use an abstraction library to abstract away risky APIs. Not a complete solution.
- Implementation: Implement and perform bounds checking on input.
- Implementation: Do not use dangerous functions such as gets. Use safer, equivalent functions which check for boundary errors.
- Operation, Build and Compilation: Run or compile the software using features or extensions that randomly arrange the positions of a program's executable and libraries in memory. Because this makes the addresses unpredictable, it can prevent an attacker from reliably jumping to exploitable code. Examples include Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) [REF-58] [REF-60] and Position-Independent Executables (PIE) [REF-64]. Imported modules may be similarly realigned if their default memory addresses conflict with other modules, in a process known as "rebasing" (for Windows) and "prelinking" (for Linux) [REF-1332] using randomly generated addresses. ASLR for libraries cannot be used in conjunction with prelink since it would require relocating the libraries at run-time, defeating the whole purpose of prelinking. For more information on these techniques see D3-SAOR (Segment Address Offset Randomization) from D3FEND [REF-1335].
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].
CWE-787: Out-of-bounds Write
The product writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.
How to prevent it
- Requirements: Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid. For example, many languages that perform their own memory management, such as Java and Perl, are not subject to buffer overflows. Other languages, such as Ada and C#, typically provide overflow protection, but the protection can be disabled by the programmer. Be wary that a language's interface to native code may still be subject to overflows, even if the language itself is theoretically safe.
- Architecture and Design: Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid. Examples include the Safe C String Library (SafeStr) by Messier and Viega [REF-57], and the Strsafe.h library from Microsoft [REF-56]. These libraries provide safer versions of overflow-prone string-handling functions.
- Operation, Build and Compilation: Use automatic buffer overflow detection mechanisms that are offered by certain compilers or compiler extensions. Examples include: the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag, Fedora/Red Hat FORTIFY_SOURCE GCC flag, StackGuard, and ProPolice, which provide various mechanisms including canary-based detection and range/index checking. D3-SFCV (Stack Frame Canary Validation) from D3FEND [REF-1334] discusses canary-based detection in detail.
- Implementation: Consider adhering to the following rules when allocating and managing an application's memory: Double check that the buffer is as large as specified. When using functions that accept a number of bytes to copy, such as strncpy(), be aware that if the destination buffer size is equal to the source buffer size, it may not NULL-terminate the string. Check buffer boundaries if accessing the buffer in a loop and make sure there is no danger of writing past the allocated space. If necessary, truncate all input strings to a reasonable length before passing them to the copy and concatenation functions.
- Operation, Build and Compilation: Run or compile the software using features or extensions that randomly arrange the positions of a program's executable and libraries in memory. Because this makes the addresses unpredictable, it can prevent an attacker from reliably jumping to exploitable code. Examples include Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) [REF-58] [REF-60] and Position-Independent Executables (PIE) [REF-64]. Imported modules may be similarly realigned if their default memory addresses conflict with other modules, in a process known as "rebasing" (for Windows) and "prelinking" (for Linux) [REF-1332] using randomly generated addresses. ASLR for libraries cannot be used in conjunction with prelink since it would require relocating the libraries at run-time, defeating the whole purpose of prelinking. For more information on these techniques see D3-SAOR (Segment Address Offset Randomization) from D3FEND [REF-1335].
- Operation: Use a CPU and operating system that offers Data Execution Protection (using hardware NX or XD bits) or the equivalent techniques that simulate this feature in software, such as PaX [REF-60] [REF-61]. These techniques ensure that any instruction executed is exclusively at a memory address that is part of the code segment. For more information on these techniques see D3-PSEP (Process Segment Execution Prevention) from D3FEND [REF-1336].
- Implementation: Replace unbounded copy functions with analogous functions that support length arguments, such as strcpy with strncpy. Create these if they are not available.
References
Advisories
Packages
Other links
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| CVE-2021-39144 XStream is vulnerable to a Remote Command Execution attack | High Known exploited | Also affects com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream |
| GHSA-hfq9-hggm-c56q XStream is vulnerable to a Denial of Service attack due to stack overflow from a manipulated binary input stream | High | Also affects com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream |
| GHSA-j563-grx4-pjpv XStream can cause Denial of Service via stack overflow | High | Also affects com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream |
| GHSA-rmr5-cpv2-vgjf Denial of Service by injecting highly recursive collections or maps in XStream | High | Also affects com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream |
| GHSA-64xx-cq4q-mf44 XStream is vulnerable to an Arbitrary Code Execution attack | High | Also affects com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream |
| GHSA-6wf9-jmg9-vxcc XStream can cause a Denial of Service | Medium | Also affects com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream |
| GHSA-g5w6-mrj7-75h2 XStream is vulnerable to an Arbitrary Code Execution attack | High | Also affects com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream |
| GHSA-8jrj-525p-826v XStream is vulnerable to an Arbitrary Code Execution attack | High | Also affects com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream |
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