Socket.IO version 0.7.8 arrived shortly after 0.7.7, bringing slight but potentially important adjustments for developers building real-time applications. Both versions aim to simplify cross-browser real-time communication using a WebSocket-like API. Let's delve into the changes.
One notable difference lies in the dependencies. Version 0.7.8 updates the redis dependency from 0.6.0 to 0.6.6 and policyfile from 0.0.3 to 0.0.4, while bumping socket.io-client to 0.7.5 from 0.7.4 from the previous version. These updates likely address bug fixes or performance improvements within those respective libraries, potentially enhancing the stability and speed of your Socket.IO application if you rely on Redis for data storage or cross-server communication and solve edge cases related to the policy file handling, necessary for certain browser and platform compatibility.
While the core functionality remains consistent, this release emphasizes refinement. Developers already using Socket.IO 0.7.7 should consider upgrading to 0.7.8 to benefit from the dependency updates. If you are starting a new project, version 0.7.8 is the recommended choice due to its updated dependencies and potential for enhanced stability. Keep an eye on the changelogs of the dependencies redis, policyfile and socket.io-client for details about their updates.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 0.7.8 of the package
Insecure randomness in socket.io
Affected versions of socket.io depend on Math.random() to create socket IDs, and therefore the IDs are predictable. With enough information on prior IDs, an attacker may be able to guess the socket ID and gain access to socket.io servers without authorization.
Update to v0.9.7 or later.
CORS misconfiguration in socket.io
The package socket.io before 2.4.0 are vulnerable to Insecure Defaults due to CORS Misconfiguration. All domains are whitelisted by default.
socket.io has an unhandled 'error' event
A specially crafted Socket.IO packet can trigger an uncaught exception on the Socket.IO server, thus killing the Node.js process.
node:events:502
throw err; // Unhandled 'error' event
^
Error [ERR_UNHANDLED_ERROR]: Unhandled error. (undefined)
at new NodeError (node:internal/errors:405:5)
at Socket.emit (node:events:500:17)
at /myapp/node_modules/socket.io/lib/socket.js:531:14
at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:77:11) {
code: 'ERR_UNHANDLED_ERROR',
context: undefined
}
| Version range | Needs minor update? |
|------------------|------------------------------------------------|
| 4.6.2...latest | Nothing to do |
| 3.0.0...4.6.1 | Please upgrade to socket.io@4.6.2 (at least) |
| 2.3.0...2.5.0 | Please upgrade to socket.io@2.5.1 |
This issue is fixed by https://github.com/socketio/socket.io/commit/15af22fc22bc6030fcead322c106f07640336115, included in socket.io@4.6.2 (released in May 2023).
The fix was backported in the 2.x branch today: https://github.com/socketio/socket.io/commit/d30630ba10562bf987f4d2b42440fc41a828119c
As a workaround for the affected versions of the socket.io package, you can attach a listener for the "error" event:
io.on("connection", (socket) => {
socket.on("error", () => {
// ...
});
});
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
Thanks a lot to Paul Taylor for the responsible disclosure.
Incorrect Handling of Non-Boolean Comparisons During Minification in uglify-js
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.
Upgrade UglifyJS to version >= 2.4.24.
Regular Expression Denial of Service in uglify-js
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.
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;");
$ 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
Update to version 2.6.0 or later.
xmlhttprequest and xmlhttprequest-ssl vulnerable to Arbitrary Code Injection
This affects the package xmlhttprequest before 1.7.0; all versions of package xmlhttprequest-ssl. Provided requests are sent synchronously (async=False on xhr.open), malicious user input flowing into xhr.send could result in arbitrary code being injected and run.