CVE-2022-36113 (published 2022-09-14T18:15Z)

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.\nMitigations 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.

CVSS v3 base score: 8.1, HIGH (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H)

Weakness information:
cwe_id: CWE-22
cwe_name: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
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.
extended_description: 
            Many file operations are intended to take place within a restricted directory. By using special elements such as ".." and "/" separators, attackers can escape outside of the restricted location to access files or directories that are elsewhere on the system. One of the most common special elements is the "../" sequence, which in most modern operating systems is interpreted as the parent directory of the current location. This is referred to as relative path traversal. Path traversal also covers the use of absolute pathnames such as "/usr/local/bin" to access unexpected files. This is referred to as absolute path traversal.
         
         

Fix information:
repo_url: https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo
commit_details: repo_url: https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo
author: Josh Triplett
author_date: 2022-08-18 17:17:19+02:00
msg: CVE-2022-36113: avoid unpacking .cargo-ok from the crate
repository: repo_url: https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo
repo_name: rust-lang/cargo
description: The Rust package manager
repo_language: Rust
owner: rust-lang
file_changes: filename: mod.rs
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -639,6 +639,13 @@ impl<'cfg> RegistrySource<'cfg> {
                     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) {
@@ -654,16 +661,14 @@ impl<'cfg> RegistrySource<'cfg> {
                 .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())

programming_language: Rust