cwlviewer is a web application to view and share Common Workflow Language workflows. Versions prior to 1.3.1 contain a Deserialization of Untrusted Data vulnerability. Commit number f6066f09edb70033a2ce80200e9fa9e70a5c29de (dated 2021-09-30) contains a patch. There are no available workarounds aside from installing the patch. The SnakeYaml constructor, by default, allows any data to be parsed. To fix the issue the object needs to be created with a SafeConstructor object, as seen in the patch.
The product deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently verifying that the resulting data will be valid.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cwlviewer | Commonwl | * | 1.3.1 (excluding) |
It is often convenient to serialize objects for communication or to save them for later use. However, deserialized data or code can often be modified without using the provided accessor functions if it does not use cryptography to protect itself. Furthermore, any cryptography would still be client-side security – which is a dangerous security assumption. Data that is untrusted can not be trusted to be well-formed. When developers place no restrictions on “gadget chains,” or series of instances and method invocations that can self-execute during the deserialization process (i.e., before the object is returned to the caller), it is sometimes possible for attackers to leverage them to perform unauthorized actions, like generating a shell.