CVE-2023-40030

MEDIUM EPSS 53.4%
Published Aug 24, 20232y ago · Modified Jun 17, 20262w ago
6.1 CVSS 3.1
Medium
Find Similar
Published Aug 24, 2023 2y ago
Last Modified Jun 17, 2026 2w ago

Description

Cargo downloads a Rust project’s dependencies and compiles the project. Starting in Rust 1.60.0 and prior to 1.72, Cargo did not escape Cargo feature names when including them in the report generated by `cargo build --timings`. A malicious package included as a dependency may inject nearly arbitrary HTML here, potentially leading to cross-site scripting if the report is subsequently uploaded somewhere. The vulnerability affects users relying on dependencies from git, local paths, or alternative registries. Users who solely depend on crates.io are unaffected. Rust 1.60.0 introduced `cargo build --timings`, which produces a report of how long the different steps of the build process took. It includes lists of Cargo features for each crate. Prior to Rust 1.72, Cargo feature names were allowed to contain almost any characters (with some exceptions as used by the feature syntax), but it would produce a future incompatibility warning about them since Rust 1.49. crates.io is far more stringent about what it considers a valid feature name and has not allowed such feature names. As the feature names were included unescaped in the timings report, they could be used to inject Javascript into the page, for example with a feature name like `features = ["<img src='' onerror=alert(0)"]`. If this report were subsequently uploaded to a domain that uses credentials, the injected Javascript could access resources from the website visitor. This issue was fixed in Rust 1.72 by turning the future incompatibility warning into an error. Users should still exercise care in which package they download, by only including trusted dependencies in their projects. Please note that even with these vulnerabilities fixed, by design Cargo allows arbitrary code execution at build time thanks to build scripts and procedural macros: a malicious dependency will be able to cause damage regardless of these vulnerabilities. crates.io has server-side checks preventing this attack, and there are no packages on crates.io exploiting these vulnerabilities. crates.io users still need to excercise care in choosing their dependencies though, as remote code execution is allowed by design there as well.

CVSS Details

Base Score
6.1
Exploitability
2.8
Impact
2.7
Vector string
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
Attack Vector Network
Attack Complexity Low
Privileges Required None
User Interaction Required
Scope Changed
Confidentiality Low
Integrity Low
Availability None

Threat Intelligence

EPSS Exploit Probability
53.4% percentile
Exploit & Patch Status
No Known Exploit
Patch Available

Weaknesses 1

CWE-79 Cross-site Scripting Injection

Affected Products 1

VendorProductVersionRange
rust-langrust*≥1.60.0  –  <1.72.0

References 4

  • github.com https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/commit/9835622853f08be9a4b58ebe29dcec8f43b64b33
    Patch
  • github.com https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/commit/f975722a0eac934c0722f111f107c4ea2f5c4365
    Patch
  • github.com https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/pull/12291
    Issue TrackingPatch
  • github.com https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/security/advisories/GHSA-wrrj-h57r-vx9p
    Vendor Advisory

Remediation

  • github.com https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/commit/9835622853f08be9a4b58ebe29dcec8f43b64b33
    Patch
  • github.com https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/commit/f975722a0eac934c0722f111f107c4ea2f5c4365
    Patch
  • github.com https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/pull/12291
    Issue TrackingPatch