Arbitrary File Write Affecting @npmcli/arborist package, versions <2.8.2


Severity

Recommended
0.0
high
0
10

CVSS assessment made by Snyk's Security Team

    Threat Intelligence

    EPSS
    0.07% (30th percentile)

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  • Snyk ID SNYK-JS-NPMCLIARBORIST-1579181
  • published 1 Sep 2021
  • disclosed 1 Sep 2021
  • credit JarLob

How to fix?

Upgrade @npmcli/arborist to version 2.8.2 or higher.

Overview

@npmcli/arborist is a Manage node_modules trees

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Arbitrary File Write. @npmcli/arborist aims to guarantee that package dependency contracts will be met, and the extraction of package contents will always be performed into the expected folder.

This is accomplished by extracting package contents into a project's node_modules folder.

If the node_modules folder of the root project or any of its dependencies is somehow replaced with a symbolic link, it could allow Arborist to write package dependencies to any arbitrary location on the file system.

Note that symbolic links contained within package artifact contents are filtered out, so another means of creating a node_modules symbolic link would have to be employed:

  1. A preinstall script could replace node_modules with a symlink. (This is prevented by using --ignore-scripts.)
  2. An attacker could supply the target with a git repository, instructing them to run npm install --ignore-scripts in the root. This may be successful, because npm install --ignore-scripts is typically not capable of making changes outside of the project directory, so it may be deemed safe.

References

CVSS Scores

version 3.1
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Snyk

Recommended
7.6 high
  • Attack Vector (AV)
    Local
  • Attack Complexity (AC)
    High
  • Privileges Required (PR)
    None
  • User Interaction (UI)
    Required
  • Scope (S)
    Changed
  • Confidentiality (C)
    High
  • Integrity (I)
    High
  • Availability (A)
    Low
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NVD

7.8 high
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SUSE

8.1 high
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Red Hat

8.1 high