CVE-2017-12581: electron OS Command Injection

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2017-12581 is a high (CVSS 9.3) OS Command Injection vulnerability in electron. EPSS estimates a 6.69% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 93.8% of scored vulnerabilities. 2 public exploits are recorded.

Timeline

1. 06-08-2017
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 05-08-2024
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

GitHub Electron before 1.6.8 allows remote command execution because of a nodeIntegration bypass vulnerability. This also affects all applications that bundle Electron code equivalent to 1.6.8 or earlier. Bypassing the Same Origin Policy (SOP) is a precondition; however, recent Electron versions do not have strict SOP enforcement. Combining an SOP bypass with a privileged URL internally used by Electron, it was possible to execute native Node.js primitives in order to run OS commands on the user's host. Specifically, a chrome-devtools://devtools/bundled/inspector.html window could be used to eval a Node.js child_process.execFile API call.

• CWE-78Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection')The product constructs all or part of an OS command using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended OS command when it is sent to a downstream component.