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notation-go has an OS error when setting CRL cache leads to denial of signature verification

Low severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jan 11, 2025 in notaryproject/notation-go • Updated Jan 14, 2025

Package

gomod github.com/notaryproject/notation-go (Go)

Affected versions

= 1.3.0-rc.1

Patched versions

1.3.0-rc.2

Description

Summary

The issue was identified during Quarkslab's security audit on the Certificate Revocation List (CRL) based revocation check feature.
After retrieving the CRL, notation-go attempts to update the CRL cache using the os.Rename method. However, this operation may fail due to operating system-specific limitations, particularly when the source and destination paths are on different mount points. This failure could lead to an unexpected program termination.

Details

In method crl.(*FileCache).Set, a temporary file is created in the OS dedicated area (like /tmp for, usually, Linux/Unix). The file is written and then it is tried to move it to the dedicated notation cache directory thanks os.Rename. As specified in Go documentation, OS specific restriction may apply. When used with Linux OS, it is relying on rename syscall from the libc and as per the documentation, moving a file to a different mountpoint raises an EXDEV error, interpreted as Cross device link not permitted error.
Some Linux distribution, like RedHat use a dedicated filesystem (tmpfs), mounted on a specific mountpoint (usually /tmp) for temporary files. When using such OS, revocation check based on CRL will repeatedly crash notation.

PoC

  1. Ensure that the temporary file storage area (e.g., /tmp) is mounted on a different mount point than the user's 'notation' cache directory.
  2. Either disable the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) revocation check, or utilize certificates that exclusively support Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) for revocation check.
  3. Try to verify a previously generated signature using the 'notation' tool.

Impact

The signature verification process is aborted as process crashes.

Remediation

The cache file should be created, written, then copied to the wanted final location, and finally removed. Additionally, this error shouldn't lead to a crash as it is not fatal and shouldn't prevent the rest of the program to properly continue

References

@shizhMSFT shizhMSFT published to notaryproject/notation-go Jan 11, 2025
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jan 13, 2025
Reviewed Jan 13, 2025
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Jan 13, 2025
Last updated Jan 14, 2025

Severity

Low

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
Local
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low

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:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

EPSS score

0.045%
(18th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2024-51491

GHSA ID

GHSA-qjh3-4j3h-vmwp

Credits

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