GHSA-89mh-mm8c-mv7f
ApostropheCMS: Unauthenticated unbounded multipart upload → disk-exhaustion DoS
Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| npm | @apostrophecms/form | < 1.5.5 | 1.5.5 |
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
**Summary**
The form submission endpoint runs `multer({ dest: os.tmpdir() }).any()` before authentication, API-key, CSRF-equivalent, or form-existence logic, with no size/count/rate limits. Unauthenticated users can stream unbounded bodies to disk per request; cleanup occurs only after the full body is received.
**Details**
`packages/form/index.js` `apiRoutes.post.submit` (L274–296): `[ multer({ dest: os.tmpdir() }).any(), self.normalizeFiles, async function (req) { try { submitForm } finally { unlink files } } ]`. No `limits`, no rate limiting, no pre-validation. "CSRF" is a fixed-value double-submit cookie (`vulnlab.csrf=csrf`, set on any GET, express/index.js L694–703) — trivially obtainable anonymously.
**PoC**
```
$ curl -s -c csrfjar.cookies http://localhost:3100/ # get vulnlab.csrf=csrf (any GET)
$ df -P /tmp # before: used=1105212
$ curl -b csrfjar.cookies -X POST http://localhost:3100/api/v1/@apostrophecms/form/submit \
-F "file=@/tmp/opencode/big.bin;type=application/octet-stream" &
DURING transfer: used=1148668
still transferring: used=1226936 # +121MB mid-transfer on disk
http=500 time=1.78s sent=209715411B # generic error AFTER full staging
# Anonymous, zero credentials. 200MB written to /tmp pre-validation.
```
**Impact**
Any unauthenticated client can force the server to persist entire request bodies to the temp filesystem and CPU-decode them; parallel requests exhaust disk `/tmp` (process/host crash) and saturate the event loop — a trivial remote DoS. Aborted transfers risk orphaning staged files (no `req.aborted` cleanup).
**Remediation** — Set multer `limits` (fileSize, fields, parts, fieldSize); perform auth/role/existence checks before the multer mount or inside the checked handler; unlink staged files on first read and on `req.aborted`/error; add per-IP rate limiting.
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.
- https://github.com/apostrophecms/apostrophe/security/advisories/GHSA-89mh-mm8c-mv7f
- https://github.com/apostrophecms/apostrophe/commit/9500b8b0e1d630d5e07fbb5fd2c25ed0943845ce
- https://github.com/apostrophecms/apostrophe/commit/f84fd41cbf6c22eb8d0008fc9c25df1f7130b350
- https://github.com/apostrophecms/apostrophe
- https://github.com/apostrophecms/apostrophe/releases/tag/@apostrophecms/[email protected]