GHSA-7vhp-vf5g-r2fw
pnpm Has Lockfile Integrity Bypass that Allows Remote Dynamic Dependencies
Packages
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
### Summary
HTTP tarball dependencies (and git-hosted tarballs) are stored in the lockfile without integrity hashes. This allows the remote server to serve different content on each install, even when a lockfile is committed.
### Details
When a package depends on an HTTP tarball URL, pnpm's tarball resolver returns only the URL without computing an integrity hash:
`resolving/tarball-resolver/src/index.ts`:
```javascript
return {
resolution: {
tarball: resolvedUrl,
// No integrity field
},
resolvedVia: 'url',
}
```
The resulting lockfile entry has no integrity to verify:
```yaml
remote-dynamic-dependency@http://example.com/pkg.tgz:
resolution: {tarball: http://example.com/pkg.tgz}
version: 1.0.0
```
Since there is no integrity hash, pnpm cannot detect when the server returns different content.
This affects:
- HTTP/HTTPS tarball URLs (`"pkg": "https://example.com/pkg.tgz"`)
- Git shorthand dependencies (`"pkg": "github:user/repo"`)
- Git URLs (`"pkg": "git+https://github.com/user/repo"`)
npm registry packages are not affected as they include integrity hashes from the registry metadata.
### PoC
See attached [pnpm-bypass-integrity-poc.zip](https://github.com/user-attachments/files/23819648/pnpm-bypass-integrity-poc.zip)
The POC includes:
- A server that returns different tarball content on each request
- A `malicious-package` that depends on the HTTP tarball
- A `victim` project that depends on `malicious-package`
To run:
```bash
cd pnpm-bypass-integrity-poc
./run-poc.sh
```
The output shows that each install (with `pnpm store prune` between them) downloads different code despite having a committed lockfile.
### Impact
An attacker who publishes a package with an HTTP tarball dependency can serve different code to different users or CI/CD environments. This enables:
- Targeted attacks based on request metadata (IP, headers, timing)
- Evasion of security audits (serve benign code during review, malicious code later)
- Supply chain attacks where the malicious payload changes over time
The attack requires the victim to install a package that has an HTTP/git tarball in its dependency tree. The victim's lockfile provides no protection.
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.