GO-2023-1703 BIT-golang-2023-24538 CVE-2023-24538
Backticks not treated as string delimiters in html/template
- Severity
- 9.8 / 10
- Critical · CVSS 3.1
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 2.28%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 83.14% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-94 Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
- Fix
1.20.3- Upgrade stdlib to this version or later
Description
Templates do not properly consider backticks (`) as Javascript string delimiters, and do not escape them as expected.
Backticks are used, since ES6, for JS template literals. If a template contains a Go template action within a Javascript template literal, the contents of the action can be used to terminate the literal, injecting arbitrary Javascript code into the Go template.
As ES6 template literals are rather complex, and themselves can do string interpolation, the decision was made to simply disallow Go template actions from being used inside of them (e.g. "var a = {{.}}"), since there is no obviously safe way to allow this behavior. This takes the same approach as github.com/google/safehtml.
With fix, Template.Parse returns an Error when it encounters templates like this, with an ErrorCode of value 12. This ErrorCode is currently unexported, but will be exported in the release of Go 1.21.
Users who rely on the previous behavior can re-enable it using the GODEBUG flag jstmpllitinterp=1, with the caveat that backticks will now be escaped. This should be used with caution.
Affected versions
Go
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| stdlib | < 1.19.8>= 1.20.0-0, < 1.20.3 |
1.19.81.20.3 |
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.
stdlib Go → 1.20.3
- go
go get stdlib@v1.20.3 && go mod tidy
Severity breakdown
CVSS 3.1 9.8
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
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
Fixes and patches
Issue reports
Other links
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-4374-p667-p6c8 HTTP/2 rapid reset can cause excessive work in net/http | High Known exploited | Also affects stdlib |
| CVE-2020-0601 Certificate validation bypass on Windows in crypto/x509 | High Known exploited | Also affects stdlib |
| RUSTSEC-2026-0382 Distrust compromised intermediate certificates in crypto/x509 | Medium | Also affects stdlib |
| GO-2026-6613 HTTP/1 server connection desynchronization after 2xx CONNECT response in net/http | High | Also affects stdlib |
| GO-2026-6609 Lack of limit on size of parsed Range headers in net/http | High | Also affects stdlib |
| GO-2026-6608 Memory limit bypass when parsing MIME headers in net/textproto, mime/multipart | High | Also affects stdlib |
| GO-2026-6607 Reject malformed ECH outer extension references in crypto/tls | High | Also affects stdlib |
| GO-2026-6604 Root.Mkdir(All) can follow junctions out of the root on Windows in os | Critical | Also affects stdlib |
Credits: Sohom Datta, Manipal Institute of Technology
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