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Parsing heavily nested list leads to Denial of Service

High
andialbrecht published GHSA-2m57-hf25-phgg Apr 13, 2024 · 1 comment

Package

pip sqlparse (pip)

Affected versions

latest

Patched versions

0.5.0

Description

Summary

Passing a heavily nested list to sqlparse.parse() leads to a Denial of Service due to RecursionError.

Details + PoC

Running the following code will raise Maximum recursion limit exceeded exception:

import sqlparse
sqlparse.parse('[' * 10000 + ']' * 10000)

We expect a traceback of RecursionError:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "trigger_sqlparse_nested_list.py", line 3, in <module>
    sqlparse.parse('[' * 10000 + ']' * 10000)
  File "/home/uriya/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sqlparse/__init__.py", line 30, in parse
    return tuple(parsestream(sql, encoding))
  File "/home/uriya/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sqlparse/engine/filter_stack.py", line 36, in run
    stmt = grouping.group(stmt)
  File "/home/uriya/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sqlparse/engine/grouping.py", line 428, in group
    func(stmt)
  File "/home/uriya/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sqlparse/engine/grouping.py", line 53, in group_brackets
    _group_matching(tlist, sql.SquareBrackets)
  File "/home/uriya/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sqlparse/engine/grouping.py", line 48, in _group_matching
    tlist.group_tokens(cls, open_idx, close_idx)
  File "/home/uriya/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sqlparse/sql.py", line 328, in group_tokens
    grp = grp_cls(subtokens)
  File "/home/uriya/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sqlparse/sql.py", line 161, in __init__
    super().__init__(None, str(self))
  File "/home/uriya/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sqlparse/sql.py", line 165, in __str__
    return ''.join(token.value for token in self.flatten())
  File "/home/uriya/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sqlparse/sql.py", line 165, in <genexpr>
    return ''.join(token.value for token in self.flatten())
  File "/home/uriya/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sqlparse/sql.py", line 214, in flatten
    yield from token.flatten()
  File "/home/uriya/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sqlparse/sql.py", line 214, in flatten
    yield from token.flatten()
  File "/home/uriya/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/sqlparse/sql.py", line 214, in flatten
    yield from token.flatten()
  [Previous line repeated 983 more times]
RecursionError: maximum recursion depth exceeded

Fix suggestion

The flatten() function of TokenList class should limit the recursion to a maximal depth:

from sqlparse.exceptions import SQLParseError

MAX_DEPTH = 100

    def flatten(self, depth=1):
        """Generator yielding ungrouped tokens.

        This method is recursively called for all child tokens.
        """
    if depth >= MAX_DEPTH:
        raise SQLParseError('Maximal depth reached')
        for token in self.tokens:
            if token.is_group:
                yield from token.flatten(depth + 1)
            else:
                yield token

Impact

Denial of Service (the impact depends on the use).
Anyone parsing a user input with sqlparse.parse() is affected.

@andialbrecht
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Severity

High

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

CVE ID

No known CVE

Weaknesses

Credits