CVE-2020-7788
Description
A flaw was found in nodejs-ini. If an attacker submits a malicious INI file to an application that parses it with ini.parse, they will pollute the prototype on the application. This can be exploited further depending on the context.
Statement
Node.JS packages in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Software Collections included the vulnerable dependency packaged in "nodejs-npm" component. Processing malicious files using npm could potentially trigger this vulnerability. The "ini" package bundled with npm was not in the library path where it could be included directly in other programs.
The nodejs-nodemon packages in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Software Collections are affected by this vulnerability as they bundle the nodejs-ini library. Usage of that library is governed by nodemon itself, so applications started by nodemon are not impacted. Further, nodemon is a developer tool not intended to be used in production.
The ini package is included in Red Hat Quay by protractor and webpack-cli, both of which are dev dependencies.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 7.3 | 9.8 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Network | Network | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | Low | N/A |
| Privileges Required | None | None | N/A |
| User Interaction | None | None | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | Unchanged | N/A |
| Confidentiality | Low | High | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | Low | High | N/A |
| Availability Impact | Low | High | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Red Hat CVSS v3 Score Explanation
Prototype pollution attacks can take various forms with varying impacts, most commonly being denial of service, but under certain conditions, remote code execution flaws can occur. The typical condition required for RCE is specific attributes of objects being executed, which is possible in rare circumstances, thus keeping CIA as Low best describes the issue here.
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)
If an attacker can trigger the allocation of the limited resources, but the number or size of the resources is not controlled, then the most common result is denial of service. This would prevent valid users from accessing the product, and it could potentially have an impact on the surrounding environment, i.e., the product may slow down, crash due to unhandled errors, or lock out legitimate users. For example, a memory exhaustion attack against an application could slow down the application as well as its host operating system.
Access Control,Other
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism; Other
In some cases it may be possible to force the product to "fail open" in the event of resource exhaustion. The state of the product -- and possibly the security functionality - may then be compromised.
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