GHSA-7mv5-5mxh-qg88
nanopb vulnerable to invalid free() call with oneofs and PB_ENABLE_MALLOC
Packages
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
### Impact
Decoding a specifically formed message can cause invalid `free()` or `realloc()` calls if the message type contains an `oneof` field, and the `oneof` directly contains both a pointer field and a non-pointer field. If the message data first contains the non-pointer field and then the pointer field, the data of the non-pointer field is incorrectly treated as if it was a pointer value. Such message data rarely occurs in normal messages, but it is a concern when untrusted data is parsed.
### Patches
Preliminary patch is available on git for [0.4.x](https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/commit/e2f0ccf939d9f82931d085acb6df8e9a182a4261) and [0.3.x](https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/commit/4a375a560651a86726e5283be85a9231fd0efe9c) branches. The fix will be released in versions 0.3.9.8 and 0.4.5 once testing has been completed.
### Workarounds
Following workarounds are available:
* Set the option `no_unions` for the oneof field. This will generate fields as separate instead of C union, and avoids triggering the problematic code.
* Set the type of all fields inside the oneof to `FT_POINTER`. This ensures that the data contained inside the `union` is always a valid pointer.
* Heap implementations that guard against invalid `free()` provide a partial mitigation. Depending on the message type, the pointer value may be attacker controlled and can be used to bypass heap protections.
### References
Bug report: https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/issues/647
### For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, comment on the bug report linked above.
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.
- https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/security/advisories/GHSA-7mv5-5mxh-qg88
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-21401
- https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/issues/647
- https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/commit/4a375a560651a86726e5283be85a9231fd0efe9c
- https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/commit/e2f0ccf939d9f82931d085acb6df8e9a182a4261
- https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb
- https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/blob/c9124132a604047d0ef97a09c0e99cd9bed2c818/CHANGELOG.txt#L1
- https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/nanopb/PYSEC-2021-432.yaml