Socket.IO version 3.1.0 represents a minor update over the previous stable release, version 3.0.5, offering developers refinements and dependency adjustments in this popular real-time communication library. While both versions share the same core purpose – providing a framework for building real-time applications with Node.js – subtle differences exist that may influence a developer's choice or upgrade decision.
Primarily, the change lies within the dependency versions. Version 3.1.0 updates the engine.io dependency from version 4.0.6 to version 4.1.0 and socket.io-adapter from 2.0.3 to 2.1.0. This could bring performance enhancements, bug fixes, or new features within the underlying engine handling the low-level transport. In the opposite way socket.io-client (dev dependency), follows the socket.io versioning itself. The unpacked size seems to change from from 1077744 to 981803. While the core description and most development dependencies remain consistent, developers focused on stability may want to evaluate the implications of the engine.io update before upgrading. Both versions share the same development environment, utilizing tools like ESLint, Prettier, and TypeScript for code quality and maintainability. Essentially, version 3.1.0 appears to be a maintenance and refinement release, building upon the foundation of 3.0.5 with dependency updates that developers should assess for compatibility and potential benefits within their specific projects.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 3.1.0 of the package
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.
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.
ws affected by a DoS when handling a request with many HTTP headers
A request with a number of headers exceeding theserver.maxHeadersCount threshold could be used to crash a ws server.
const http = require('http');
const WebSocket = require('ws');
const wss = new WebSocket.Server({ port: 0 }, function () {
const chars = "!#$%&'*+-.0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz^_`|~".split('');
const headers = {};
let count = 0;
for (let i = 0; i < chars.length; i++) {
if (count === 2000) break;
for (let j = 0; j < chars.length; j++) {
const key = chars[i] + chars[j];
headers[key] = 'x';
if (++count === 2000) break;
}
}
headers.Connection = 'Upgrade';
headers.Upgrade = 'websocket';
headers['Sec-WebSocket-Key'] = 'dGhlIHNhbXBsZSBub25jZQ==';
headers['Sec-WebSocket-Version'] = '13';
const request = http.request({
headers: headers,
host: '127.0.0.1',
port: wss.address().port
});
request.end();
});
The vulnerability was fixed in ws@8.17.1 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/e55e5106f10fcbaac37cfa89759e4cc0d073a52c) and backported to ws@7.5.10 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/22c28763234aa75a7e1b76f5c01c181260d7917f), ws@6.2.3 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/eeb76d313e2a00dd5247ca3597bba7877d064a63), and ws@5.2.4 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/4abd8f6de4b0b65ef80b3ff081989479ed93377e)
In vulnerable versions of ws, the issue can be mitigated in the following ways:
--max-http-header-size=size and/or the maxHeaderSize options so that no more headers than the server.maxHeadersCount limit can be sent.server.maxHeadersCount to 0 so that no limit is applied.The vulnerability was reported by Ryan LaPointe in https://github.com/websockets/ws/issues/2230.
cookie accepts cookie name, path, and domain with out of bounds characters
The cookie name could be used to set other fields of the cookie, resulting in an unexpected cookie value. For example, serialize("userName=<script>alert('XSS3')</script>; Max-Age=2592000; a", value) would result in "userName=<script>alert('XSS3')</script>; Max-Age=2592000; a=test", setting userName cookie to <script> and ignoring value.
A similar escape can be used for path and domain, which could be abused to alter other fields of the cookie.
Upgrade to 0.7.0, which updates the validation for name, path, and domain.
Avoid passing untrusted or arbitrary values for these fields, ensure they are set by the application instead of user input.
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.