Attacker Value
Unknown
(0 users assessed)
Exploitability
Unknown
(0 users assessed)
User Interaction
Required
Privileges Required
None
Attack Vector
Local
0

CVE-2021-39135

Disclosure Date: August 31, 2021
Add MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques that apply to this CVE.

Description

@npmcli/arborist, the library that calculates dependency trees and manages the node_modules folder hierarchy for the npm command line interface, 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. This is patched in @npmcli/arborist 2.8.2 which is included in npm v7.20.7 and above. For more information including workarounds please see the referenced GHSA-gmw6-94gg-2rc2.

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CVSS V3 Severity and Metrics
Base Score:
7.8 High
Impact Score:
5.9
Exploitability Score:
1.8
Vector:
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack Vector (AV):
Local
Attack Complexity (AC):
Low
Privileges Required (PR):
None
User Interaction (UI):
Required
Scope (S):
Unchanged
Confidentiality (C):
High
Integrity (I):
High
Availability (A):
High

General Information

Vendors

  • npmjs,
  • oracle,
  • siemens

Products

  • arborist,
  • graalvm 20.3.3,
  • graalvm 21.2.0,
  • sinec infrastructure network services

Additional Info

Technical Analysis