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shvl vulnerable to prototype pollution

Critical severity GitHub Reviewed Published May 24, 2022 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Feb 1, 2024

Package

npm shvl (npm)

Affected versions

>= 1.0.0, <= 2.0.1

Patched versions

2.0.2

Description

Overview

Prototype pollution vulnerability in 'shvl' versions 1.0.0 through 2.0.1 allows an attacker to cause a denial of service and may lead to remote code execution.

Details

The NPM module 'shvl' can be abused by Prototype Pollution vulnerability since the function 'set()' did not check for the type of object before assigning value to the property. Due to this flaw an attacker could create a non-existent property or able to manipulate the property which leads to Denial of Service or potentially Remote code execution.

PoC Details

The 'set()' function accepts four arguments object, path, val, obj. Due to the absence of validation, at values passed into path, val arguments, an attacker can supply a malicious value by adjusting the path value to include the __proto__ property. Since there is no validation before assigning property to check whether the assigned path is the Object's own property or not, the property isAdmin will be directly be assigned to the empty obj({}) thereby polluting the Object prototype. Later in the code, if there is a check to validate isAdmin the valued would be substituted as "true" as it had been polluted.

const shvl = require('shvl');
var obj = {}
console.log("Before : " + obj.isAdmin);
shvl.set(obj, '__proto__.isAdmin', true);
console.log("After : " + obj.isAdmin);

Affected Environments

1.0.0-2.0.1

Remediation

There are a couple of ways to mitigate prototype pollution vulnerabilities, for example: Most of the cases can be solved by freezing an object which doesn’t allow to add, remove, or change its properties. Validating the JSON input with schema validation, this guarantees that the JSON input contains only predefined attributes. We can change the objects, so they won’t have any prototype association by using “Object.create”.

References

Published by the National Vulnerability Database Dec 29, 2020
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database May 24, 2022
Reviewed Feb 1, 2024
Last updated Feb 1, 2024

Severity

Critical

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
High
Integrity
High
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:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS score

0.850%
(82nd percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2020-28278

GHSA ID

GHSA-pqwc-3vhw-qcvq

Source code

No known source code
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