CVE-2023-39261 - Execution with Unnecessary Privileges

Severity

78%

Complexity

18%

Confidentiality

98%

In JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA before 2023.2 plugin for Space was requesting excessive permissions

CVSS 3.1 Base Score 7.8. CVSS Attack Vector: local. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H).

Demo Examples

Execution with Unnecessary Privileges

CWE-250

This code temporarily raises the program's privileges to allow creation of a new user folder.


               
return True
return False#avoid CWE-22 and CWE-78
lowerPrivileges()
return False

While the program only raises its privilege level to create the folder and immediately lowers it again, if the call to os.mkdir() throws an exception, the call to lowerPrivileges() will not occur. As a result, the program is indefinitely operating in a raised privilege state, possibly allowing further exploitation to occur.

Execution with Unnecessary Privileges

CWE-250

The following code calls chroot() to restrict the application to a subset of the filesystem below APP_HOME in order to prevent an attacker from using the program to gain unauthorized access to files located elsewhere. The code then opens a file specified by the user and processes the contents of the file.


               
...

Constraining the process inside the application's home directory before opening any files is a valuable security measure. However, the absence of a call to setuid() with some non-zero value means the application is continuing to operate with unnecessary root privileges. Any successful exploit carried out by an attacker against the application can now result in a privilege escalation attack because any malicious operations will be performed with the privileges of the superuser. If the application drops to the privilege level of a non-root user, the potential for damage is substantially reduced.

Execution with Unnecessary Privileges

CWE-250

This application intends to use a user's location to determine the timezone the user is in:


               
setTimeZone(userCurrLocation);

This is unnecessary use of the location API, as this information is already available using the Android Time API. Always be sure there is not another way to obtain needed information before resorting to using the location API.

Execution with Unnecessary Privileges

CWE-250

This code uses location to determine the user's current US State location.

First the application must declare that it requires the ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION permission in the application's manifest.xml:


               
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION"/>

During execution, a call to getLastLocation() will return a location based on the application's location permissions. In this case the application has permission for the most accurate location possible:


               
deriveStateFromCoords(userCurrLocation);

While the application needs this information, it does not need to use the ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION permission, as the ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION permission will be sufficient to identify which US state the user is in.

Overview

First reported 1 year ago

2023-07-26 13:15:00

Last updated 1 year ago

2023-08-02 20:34:00

Affected Software

JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA

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