CVE-2021-39144 - Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

Severity

88%

Complexity

27%

Confidentiality

98%

XStream is a simple library to serialize objects to XML and back again. In affected versions this vulnerability may allow a remote attacker has sufficient rights to execute commands of the host only by manipulating the processed input stream. No user is affected, who followed the recommendation to setup XStream's security framework with a whitelist limited to the minimal required types. XStream 1.4.18 uses no longer a blacklist by default, since it cannot be secured for general purpose.

CVSS 3.1 Base Score 8.8. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H).

CVSS 2.0 Base Score 6.5. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P).

CVSS 3.1 Base Score 8.5. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: high. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H).

CVSS 2.0 Base Score 6. CVSS Attack Vector: network. CVSS Attack Complexity: medium. CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P).

Demo Examples

Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

CWE-94

This example attempts to write user messages to a message file and allow users to view them.


               
}
echo "Message Saved!<p>\n";
include($MessageFile);

While the programmer intends for the MessageFile to only include data, an attacker can provide a message such as:


               
message=%3C?php%20system(%22/bin/ls%20-l%22);?%3E

which will decode to the following:


               
<?php system("/bin/ls -l");?>

The programmer thought they were just including the contents of a regular data file, but PHP parsed it and executed the code. Now, this code is executed any time people view messages.

Notice that XSS (CWE-79) is also possible in this situation.

Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')

CWE-94

edit-config.pl: This CGI script is used to modify settings in a configuration file.


               
}
# code to add a field/key to a file goes here
# code to set key to a particular file goes here
# code to delete key from a particular file goes here
eval($code);# this is super-efficient code, especially if you have to invoke# any one of dozens of different functions!
handleConfigAction($configfile, param('action'));
print "No action specified!\n";

The script intends to take the 'action' parameter and invoke one of a variety of functions based on the value of that parameter - config_file_add_key(), config_file_set_key(), or config_file_delete_key(). It could set up a conditional to invoke each function separately, but eval() is a powerful way of doing the same thing in fewer lines of code, especially when a large number of functions or variables are involved. Unfortunately, in this case, the attacker can provide other values in the action parameter, such as: add_key(",","); system("/bin/ls"); This would produce the following string in handleConfigAction(): config_file_add_key(",","); system("/bin/ls"); Any arbitrary Perl code could be added after the attacker has "closed off" the construction of the original function call, in order to prevent parsing errors from causing the malicious eval() to fail before the attacker's payload is activated. This particular manipulation would fail after the system() call, because the "_key(\$fname, \$key, \$val)" portion of the string would cause an error, but this is irrelevant to the attack because the payload has already been activated.

Demo Examples

Deserialization of Untrusted Data

CWE-502

This code snippet deserializes an object from a file and uses it as a UI button:


               
}
in.close();

This code does not attempt to verify the source or contents of the file before deserializing it. An attacker may be able to replace the intended file with a file that contains arbitrary malicious code which will be executed when the button is pressed.

To mitigate this, explicitly define final readObject() to prevent deserialization. An example of this is:


               
throw new java.io.IOException("Cannot be deserialized"); }

Deserialization of Untrusted Data

CWE-502

In Python, the Pickle library handles the serialization and deserialization processes. In this example derived from [R.502.7], the code receives and parses data, and afterwards tries to authenticate a user based on validating a token.


               
}
raise AuthFail

Unfortunately, the code does not verify that the incoming data is legitimate. An attacker can construct a illegitimate, serialized object "AuthToken" that instantiates one of Python's subprocesses to execute arbitrary commands. For instance,the attacker could construct a pickle that leverages Python's subprocess module, which spawns new processes and includes a number of arguments for various uses. Since Pickle allows objects to define the process for how they should be unpickled, the attacker can direct the unpickle process to call Popen in the subprocess module and execute /bin/sh.

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