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GHSA-wf3x-273g-mvxv

devalue: Sparse arrays emitted by uneval cause eager allocation when evaluated

Low npm
Severity
2.3 / 10
Low · CVSS 4.0
Exploit chance (EPSS)
—
No score published
Known exploited
No
Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness
CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
CWE-789 Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value
Fix
5.9.3
Upgrade devalue to this version or later

Description

Evaluating legitimate uneval output for a sparse array can allocate memory proportional to its declared length. A tiny serialized value can therefore cause large memory allocation in a consuming browser/runtime. This occurs during evaluation of generated code, not in default parse sparse-array construction.

You would only be affected by this if you were serializing very large sparse arrays and then evaluating the results. In the general use case for uneval of sending data to the client, the worst that could happen is the browser tab running out of memory.

Affected versions

npm

PackageVulnerableFixed in
devalue
>= 1.0.0, <= 5.9.2
No fix yet
devalue
>= 1.0.0, < 5.9.3
5.9.3

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.

devalue npm → 5.9.3

npm
npm install devalue@5.9.3
yarn
yarn add devalue@5.9.3
pnpm
pnpm add devalue@5.9.3

Severity breakdown

CVSS 4.0 2.3

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:L

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Attack requirements
Present
Privileges required
None
User interaction
Passive
Confidentiality (vulnerable system)
None
Integrity (vulnerable system)
None
Availability (vulnerable system)
None
Confidentiality (subsequent systems)
None
Integrity (subsequent systems)
None
Availability (subsequent systems)
Low

Weakness

CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.

How to prevent it
  • Architecture and Design: Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place. The login application should be protected against DoS attacks as much as possible. Limiting the database access, perhaps by caching result sets, can help minimize the resources expended. To further limit the potential for a DoS attack, consider tracking the rate of requests received from users and blocking requests that exceed a defined rate threshold.
  • Architecture and Design: Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either: recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, or uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed. The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question. The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute -- and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.
  • Architecture and Design: Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
  • Implementation: Ensure that all failures in resource allocation place the system into a safe posture.

CWE-789: Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value

The product allocates memory based on an untrusted, large size value, but it does not ensure that the size is within expected limits, allowing arbitrary amounts of memory to be allocated.

How to prevent it
  • Implementation, Architecture and Design: Perform adequate input validation against any value that influences the amount of memory that is allocated. Define an appropriate strategy for handling requests that exceed the limit, and consider supporting a configuration option so that the administrator can extend the amount of memory to be used if necessary.
  • Operation: Run your program using system-provided resource limits for memory. This might still cause the program to crash or exit, but the impact to the rest of the system will be minimized.

References

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. Last updated by the source
AdvisorySeverityWhy it's related
GHSA-hx4r-w6wj-j8fg
devalue: Residual sparse-array CPU amplification in uneval
Medium Also affects devalue
GHSA-mcm9-63f2-9j32
devalue: Repeated primitive strings cause quadratic expansion in uneval
High Also affects devalue
GHSA-r9w8-h9r3-54w4
devalue: Custom ArrayBuffer revivers can bypass typed-array allocation validation
High Also affects devalue
GHSA-x5rw-q4pp-hg5g
devalue: stringifyAsync can cause an unhandled rejection despite a caught returned promise
High Also affects devalue
GHSA-4q55-j62x-fr9h
devalue: Malformed null-prototype object keys bypass __proto__ rejection via property-key coercion
Medium Also affects devalue
GHSA-j22f-vq7h-c4qm
devalue: `stringify`/`uneval` serialize shared memory
High Also affects devalue
GHSA-9rgm-9g3h-6x36
Svelte devalue: DoS via malformed input
Medium Also affects devalue
GHSA-77vg-94rm-hx3p
Svelte devalue: DoS via sparse array deserialization
High Also affects devalue

Credits: elliott-with-the-longest-name-on-github

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