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DoS via malicious record IDs in WatermelonDB

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jun 3, 2020 in Nozbe/WatermelonDB • Updated Jan 9, 2023

Package

npm @nozbe/watermelondb (npm)

Affected versions

< 0.15.1
>= 0.16.0, < 0.16.2

Patched versions

0.15.1
0.16.2

Description

Impact

Medium severity 5.9 https://www.first.org/cvss/calculator/3.0#CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H

A maliciously crafted record ID can exploit a SQL Injection vulnerability in iOS adapter implementation and cause the app to delete all or selected records from the database, generally causing the app to become unusable.

This may happen in apps that don't validate IDs (valid IDs are /^[a-zA-Z0-9_-.]+$/) and use Watermelon Sync or low-level database.adapter.destroyDeletedRecords method.

The integrity risk is low due to the fact that maliciously deleted records won't synchronize, so logout-login will restore all data, although some local changes may be lost if the malicious deletion causes the sync process to fail to proceed to push stage.

No way to breach confidentiality with this vulnerability is known. Full exploitation of SQL Injection is mitigated, because it's not possible to nest an insert/update query inside a delete query in SQLite, and it's not possible to pass a semicolon-separated second query. There's also no known practicable way to breach confidentiality by selectively deleting records, because those records will not be synchronized.

It's theoretically possible that selective record deletion could cause an app to behave insecurely if lack of a record is used to make security decisions by the app.

Patches

Patched versions include:

  • 0.15.1
  • 0.16.2
  • 0.16.1-fix
    • this is actually the same as 0.16.0, but with the patch applied - as 0.16.1 is causing issues for some users
  • 924c7ae2a8d commit id contains the patch

Workarounds

  1. Ensure that your backend service sanitizes record IDs sent in the pull sync endpoint, such that only IDs matching /^[a-zA-Z0-9_-.]+$/ are returned. This could also be done in JavaScript pullChanges function passed to synchronize()
  2. If you use destroyDeletedRecords directly, validate all IDs passed the same way

For more information

If you have any questions about this advisory, contact @radex.

References

@radex radex published to Nozbe/WatermelonDB Jun 3, 2020
Reviewed Jun 3, 2020
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jun 3, 2020
Last updated Jan 9, 2023

Severity

Moderate

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
High
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
Low
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:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H

EPSS score

0.076%
(34th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2020-4035

GHSA ID

GHSA-38f9-m297-6q9g

Source code

No known source code
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