CVE-2022-36113: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') (CWE-22)
value: Cargo is a package manager for the rust programming language. After a package is downloaded, Cargo extracts its source code in the ~/.cargo folder on disk, making it available to the Rust projects it builds. To record when an extraction is successful, Cargo writes "ok" to the .cargo-ok file at the root of the extracted source code once it extracted all the files. It was discovered that Cargo allowed packages to contain a .cargo-ok symbolic link, which Cargo would extract. Then, when Cargo attempted to write "ok" into .cargo-ok, it would actually replace the first two bytes of the file the symlink pointed to with ok. This would allow an attacker to corrupt one file on the machine using Cargo to extract the package. Note that by design Cargo allows code execution at build time, due to build scripts and procedural macros. The vulnerabilities in this advisory allow performing a subset of the possible damage in a harder to track down way. Your dependencies must still be trusted if you want to be protected from attacks, as it's possible to perform the same attacks with build scripts and procedural macros. The vulnerability is present in all versions of Cargo. Rust 1.64, to be released on September 22nd, will include a fix for it. Since the vulnerability is just a more limited way to accomplish what a malicious build scripts or procedural macros can do, we decided not to publish Rust point releases backporting the security fix. Patch files are available for Rust 1.63.0 are available in the wg-security-response repository for people building their own toolchain.
Mitigations We recommend users of alternate registries to exercise care in which package they download, by only including trusted dependencies in their projects. Please note that even with these vulnerabilities fixed, by design Cargo allows arbitrary code execution at build time thanks to build scripts and procedural macros: a malicious dependency will be able to cause damage regardless of these vulnerabilities. crates.io implemented server-side checks to reject these kinds of packages years ago, and there are no packages on crates.io exploiting these vulnerabilities. crates.io users still need to exercise care in choosing their dependencies though, as remote code execution is allowed by design there as well.
CWE description: The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.
CVSS v3 base score: 8.1
Published: 2022-09-14T18:15Z
Repository: https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo
Language: Rust
Files changed: src/cargo/sources/registry/mod.rs
Commit date: 2022-09-14 10:54:44 +0200
Commit message: CVE-2022-36113: avoid unpacking .cargo-ok from the crate

Diff: diff --git a/src/cargo/sources/registry/mod.rs b/src/cargo/sources/registry/mod.rs
index c17b822fd..a2863bf78 100644
--- a/src/cargo/sources/registry/mod.rs
+++ b/src/cargo/sources/registry/mod.rs
@@ -637,10 +637,17 @@ impl<'cfg> RegistrySource<'cfg> {
                      a file at {:?} which isn't under {:?}",
                     entry_path,
                     prefix
                 )
             }
+            // Prevent unpacking the lockfile from the crate itself.
+            if entry_path
+                .file_name()
+                .map_or(false, |p| p == PACKAGE_SOURCE_LOCK)
+            {
+                continue;
+            }
             // Unpacking failed
             let mut result = entry.unpack_in(parent).map_err(anyhow::Error::from);
             if cfg!(windows) && restricted_names::is_windows_reserved_path(&entry_path) {
                 result = result.with_context(|| {
                     format!(
@@ -652,20 +659,18 @@ impl<'cfg> RegistrySource<'cfg> {
             }
             result
                 .with_context(|| format!("failed to unpack entry at `{}`", entry_path.display()))?;
         }
 
-        // The lock file is created after unpacking so we overwrite a lock file
-        // which may have been extracted from the package.
+        // Now that we've finished unpacking, create and write to the lock file to indicate that
+        // unpacking was successful.
         let mut ok = OpenOptions::new()
-            .create(true)
+            .create_new(true)
             .read(true)
             .write(true)
             .open(&path)
             .with_context(|| format!("failed to open `{}`", path.display()))?;
-
-        // Write to the lock file to indicate that unpacking was successful.
         write!(ok, "ok")?;
 
         Ok(unpack_dir.to_path_buf())
     }
 

Vulnerable code:         // The lock file is created after unpacking so we overwrite a lock file
        // which may have been extracted from the package.
            .create(true)

        // Write to the lock file to indicate that unpacking was successful.
Fixed code:             // Prevent unpacking the lockfile from the crate itself.
            if entry_path
                .file_name()
                .map_or(false, |p| p == PACKAGE_SOURCE_LOCK)
            {
                continue;
            }
        // Now that we've finished unpacking, create and write to the lock file to indicate that
        // unpacking was successful.
            .create_new(true)