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Electron's sandboxed renderers can obtain thumbnails of arbitrary files through the nativeImage API

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Oct 12, 2021 in electron/electron • Updated Jan 30, 2023

Package

npm electron (npm)

Affected versions

< 11.5.0
>= 12.0.0, < 12.1.0
>= 13.0.0, < 13.3.0

Patched versions

11.5.0
12.1.0
13.3.0

Description

Impact

This vulnerability allows a sandboxed renderer to request a "thumbnail" image of an arbitrary file on the user's system. The thumbnail can potentially include significant parts of the original file, including textual data in many cases.

All current stable versions of Electron are affected.

Patches

This was fixed with #30728, and the following Electron versions contain the fix:

  • 15.0.0-alpha.10
  • 14.0.0
  • 13.3.0
  • 12.1.0
  • 11.5.0

Workarounds

If your app enables contextIsolation, this vulnerability is significantly more difficult for an attacker to exploit.

Further, if your app does not depend on the createThumbnailFromPath API, then you can simply disable the functionality. In the main process, before the 'ready' event:

delete require('electron').nativeImage.createThumbnailFromPath

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, email us at [email protected].

References

@MarshallOfSound MarshallOfSound published to electron/electron Oct 12, 2021
Reviewed Oct 12, 2021
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Oct 12, 2021
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Oct 12, 2021
Last updated Jan 30, 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
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

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:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N

EPSS score

0.149%
(51st percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2021-39184

GHSA ID

GHSA-mpjm-v997-c4h4

Source code

Credits

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