melange's world-writable permissions expose SBOM files to potential image tampering
Date: 2025-07
Affected: go/chainguard.dev/melange
Attack vector: dos
Category: vulnerability-disclosure
Severity: Medium
CVE: CVE-2025-54059
CWE: CWE-276
CVSS: 4.4 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L)

It was discovered that the SBOM files generated by melange in apks had file system permissions mode 666: ``` $ apkrane ls https://packages.wolfi.dev/os/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz -P hello-wolfi --full --latest | xargs wget -q -O - | tar tzv 2>/dev/null var/lib/db/sbom drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2025-06-23 14:17 var/lib/db/sbom -rw-rw-rw- root/root 3383 2025-06-23 14:17 var/lib/db/sbom/hello-wolfi-2.12.2-r1.spdx.json ``` This issue was introduced in commit 1b272db ("Persist workspace filesystem throughout package builds (#1836)") ([v0.23.0](https://github.com/chainguard-dev/melange/releases/tag/v0.23.0)). ### Impact This potentially allows an unprivileged user to tamper with apk SBOMs on a running image, potentially confusing security scanners. An attacker could also perform a DoS under special circumstances. ### Patches This issue was addressed in melange in e29494b ("fix: tighten up permissions for written SBOM files and signature tarballs (#2086)") ([v0.29.5](https://github.com/chainguard-dev/melange/releases/tag/v0.29.5)). ## Acknowledgements Thanks to Cody Harris [H2O.ai](https://h2o.ai/) and Markus Boehme for independently reporting this issue.


Mitigations:

Architectural layers (MAESTRO):