CVE-2023-30844

Mutagen provides real-time file synchronization and flexible network forwarding for developers. Prior to versions 0.16.6 and 0.17.1 in mutagen and prior to version 0.17.1 in mutagen-compose, Mutagen list and monitor commands are susceptible to control characters that could be provided by remote endpoints. This could cause terminal corruption, either intentional or unintentional, if these characters were present in error messages or file paths/names. This could be used as an attack vector if synchronizing with an untrusted remote endpoint, synchronizing files not under control of the user, or forwarding to/from an untrusted remote endpoint. On very old systems with terminals susceptible to issues such as CVE-2003-0069, the issue could theoretically cause code execution. The problem has been patched in Mutagen v0.16.6 and v0.17.1. Earlier versions of Mutagen are no longer supported and will not be patched. Versions of Mutagen after v0.18.0 will also have the patch merged. As a workaround, avoiding synchronization of untrusted files or interaction with untrusted remote endpoints should mitigate any risk.

Weakness

The product receives input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could be interpreted as escape, meta, or control character sequences when they are sent to a downstream component.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Assume all input is malicious. Use an “accept known good” input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
• When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, “boat” may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as “red” or “blue.”
• Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code’s environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/134.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/41.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/81.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/93.html

References

• https://github.com/mutagen-io/mutagen/releases/tag/v0.16.6
• https://github.com/mutagen-io/mutagen/releases/tag/v0.17.1
• https://github.com/mutagen-io/mutagen/security/advisories/GHSA-jmp2-wc4p-wfh2
• https://github.com/mutagen-io/mutagen/releases/tag/v0.16.6
• https://github.com/mutagen-io/mutagen/releases/tag/v0.17.1
• https://github.com/mutagen-io/mutagen/security/advisories/GHSA-jmp2-wc4p-wfh2