Qiskit IBM Runtime is an environment that streamlines quantum computations and provides optimal implementations of the Qiskit quantum computing SDK. Starting in version 0.1.0 and prior to version 0.21.2, deserializing json data using qiskit_ibm_runtime.RuntimeDecoder can lead to arbitrary code execution given a correctly formatted input string. Version 0.21.2 contains a fix for this issue.
The product deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently verifying that the resulting data will be valid.
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.