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Buffer Overflow in yajl-ruby

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Apr 5, 2022 in brianmario/yajl-ruby • Updated Aug 8, 2023

Package

bundler yajl-ruby (RubyGems)

Affected versions

<= 1.4.2

Patched versions

1.4.3

Description

NOTE: A previous patch, 1.4.2, fixed the heap memory issue, but could still lead to a DoS infinite loop. Please update to version 1.4.3

The 1.x branch and the 2.x branch of yajl contain an integer overflow which leads to subsequent heap memory corruption when dealing with large (~2GB) inputs.

Details

The reallocation logic at yajl_buf.c#L64 may result in the need 32bit integer wrapping to 0 when need approaches a value of 0x80000000 (i.e. ~2GB of data), which results in a reallocation of buf->alloc into a small heap chunk.

These integers are declared as size_t in the 2.x branch of yajl, which practically prevents the issue from triggering on 64bit platforms, however this does not preclude this issue triggering on 32bit builds on which size_t is a 32bit integer.

Subsequent population of this under-allocated heap chunk is based on the original buffer size, leading to heap memory corruption.

Impact

We rate this as a moderate severity vulnerability which mostly impacts process availability as we believe exploitation for arbitrary code execution to be unlikely.

Patches

Patched in yajl-ruby 1.4.3

Workarounds

Avoid passing large inputs to YAJL

References

https://github.com/brianmario/yajl-ruby/blob/7168bd79b888900aa94523301126f968a93eb3a6/ext/yajl/yajl_buf.c#L64

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

References

@brianmario brianmario published to brianmario/yajl-ruby Apr 5, 2022
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Apr 5, 2022
Reviewed Apr 5, 2022
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Apr 5, 2022
Last updated Aug 8, 2023

Severity

Moderate

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
High
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:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS score

1.502%
(87th percentile)

CVE ID

CVE-2022-24795

GHSA ID

GHSA-jj47-x69x-mxrm

Source code

Credits

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