CVE-2024-47742 - Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

Severity

78%

Complexity

18%

Confidentiality

98%

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: firmware_loader: Block path traversal Most firmware names are hardcoded strings, or are constructed from fairly constrained format strings where the dynamic parts are just some hex numbers or such. However, there are a couple codepaths in the kernel where firmware file names contain string components that are passed through from a device or semi-privileged userspace; the ones I could find (not counting interfaces that require root privileges) are: - lpfc_sli4_request_firmware_update() seems to construct the firmware filename from "ModelName", a string that was previously parsed out of some descriptor ("Vital Product Data") in lpfc_fill_vpd() - nfp_net_fw_find() seems to construct a firmware filename from a model name coming from nfp_hwinfo_lookup(pf->hwinfo, "nffw.partno"), which I think parses some descriptor that was read from the device. (But this case likely isn't exploitable because the format string looks like "netronome/nic_%s", and there shouldn't be any *folders* starting with "netronome/nic_". The previous case was different because there, the "%s" is *at the start* of the format string.) - module_flash_fw_schedule() is reachable from the ETHTOOL_MSG_MODULE_FW_FLASH_ACT netlink command, which is marked as GENL_UNS_ADMIN_PERM (meaning CAP_NET_ADMIN inside a user namespace is enough to pass the privilege check), and takes a userspace-provided firmware name. (But I think to reach this case, you need to have CAP_NET_ADMIN over a network namespace that a special kind of ethernet device is mapped into, so I think this is not a viable attack path in practice.) Fix it by rejecting any firmware names containing ".." path components. For what it's worth, I went looking and haven't found any USB device drivers that use the firmware loader dangerously.

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

Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

CWE-22

The following code could be for a social networking application in which each user's profile information is stored in a separate file. All files are stored in a single directory.


               
print "</ul>\n";
print "<li>$_</li>\n";

While the programmer intends to access files such as "/users/cwe/profiles/alice" or "/users/cwe/profiles/bob", there is no verification of the incoming user parameter. An attacker could provide a string such as:


               
../../../etc/passwd

The program would generate a profile pathname like this:


               
/users/cwe/profiles/../../../etc/passwd

When the file is opened, the operating system resolves the "../" during path canonicalization and actually accesses this file:


               
/etc/passwd

As a result, the attacker could read the entire text of the password file.

Notice how this code also contains an error message information leak (CWE-209) if the user parameter does not produce a file that exists: the full pathname is provided. Because of the lack of output encoding of the file that is retrieved, there might also be a cross-site scripting problem (CWE-79) if profile contains any HTML, but other code would need to be examined.

Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

CWE-22

In the example below, the path to a dictionary file is read from a system property and used to initialize a File object.


               
File dictionaryFile = new File(filename);

However, the path is not validated or modified to prevent it from containing relative or absolute path sequences before creating the File object. This allows anyone who can control the system property to determine what file is used. Ideally, the path should be resolved relative to some kind of application or user home directory.

Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

CWE-22

The following code takes untrusted input and uses a regular expression to filter "../" from the input. It then appends this result to the /home/user/ directory and attempts to read the file in the final resulting path.


               
ReadAndSendFile($filename);

Since the regular expression does not have the /g global match modifier, it only removes the first instance of "../" it comes across. So an input value such as:


               
../../../etc/passwd

will have the first "../" stripped, resulting in:


               
../../etc/passwd

This value is then concatenated with the /home/user/ directory:


               
/home/user/../../etc/passwd

which causes the /etc/passwd file to be retrieved once the operating system has resolved the ../ sequences in the pathname. This leads to relative path traversal (CWE-23).

Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

CWE-22

The following code attempts to validate a given input path by checking it against a whitelist and once validated delete the given file. In this specific case, the path is considered valid if it starts with the string "/safe_dir/".


               
}
f.delete()

An attacker could provide an input such as this:


               
/safe_dir/../important.dat

The software assumes that the path is valid because it starts with the "/safe_path/" sequence, but the "../" sequence will cause the program to delete the important.dat file in the parent directory

Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')

CWE-22

The following code demonstrates the unrestricted upload of a file with a Java servlet and a path traversal vulnerability. The HTML code is the same as in the previous example with the action attribute of the form sending the upload file request to the Java servlet instead of the PHP code.


               
</form>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit"/>

When submitted the Java servlet's doPost method will receive the request, extract the name of the file from the Http request header, read the file contents from the request and output the file to the local upload directory.


               
}
{...}// the starting position of the boundary header// verify that content type is multipart form data
// output the file to the local upload directory
bw.close();
}
bw.flush();
// output successful upload response HTML page
// output unsuccessful upload response HTML page
...

This code does not check the filename that is provided in the header, so an attacker can use "../" sequences to write to files outside of the intended directory. Depending on the executing environment, the attacker may be able to specify arbitrary files to write to, leading to a wide variety of consequences, from code execution, XSS (CWE-79), or system crash.

Also, this code does not perform a check on the type of the file being uploaded. This could allow an attacker to upload any executable file or other file with malicious code (CWE-434).

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