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Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component ('Injection')

CVE-2024-38366

Severity High
Score 10/10

Summary

trunk.cocoapods.org is the authentication server for the CoacoaPods dependency manager. The part of trunk which verifies whether a user has a real email address on signup used a rfc-822 library which executes a shell command to validate the email domain MX records validity. It works via an DNS MX. This lookup could be manipulated to also execute a command on the trunk server, effectively giving root access to the server and the infrastructure. This issue was patched server-side with commit 001cc3a430e75a16307f5fd6cdff1363ad2f40f3 in September 2023. This RCE triggered a full user-session reset, as an attacker could have used this method to write to any Podspec in trunk.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • HIGH
  • CHANGED
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • HIGH
  • HIGH

CWE-74 - Injection

Listed as the number one web application security risk on the 'OWASP Top Ten', injection attacks are widespread and dangerous, especially in legacy applications. Injection attacks are a class of vulnerabilities in which an attacker injects untrusted data into a web application that gets processed by an interpreter, altering the program's execution. This can result in data loss/theft, loss of data integrity, denial of service, and even compromising the entire system.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published