Minder is a software supply chain security platform. Prior to version 0.0.50, Minder engine is susceptible to a denial of service from memory exhaustion that can be triggered from maliciously created templates. Minder engine uses templating to generate strings for various use cases such as URLs, messages for pull requests, descriptions for advisories. In some cases can the user control both the template and the params for it, and in a subset of these cases, Minder reads the generated template entirely into memory. When Minders templating meets both of these conditions, an attacker is able to generate large enough templates that Minder will exhaust memory and crash. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.0.50.
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource, thereby enabling an actor to influence the amount of resources consumed, eventually leading to the exhaustion of available resources.
Limited resources include memory, file system storage, database connection pool entries, and CPU. If an attacker can trigger the allocation of these limited resources, but the number or size of the resources is not controlled, then the attacker could cause a denial of service that consumes all available resources. This would prevent valid users from accessing the product, and it could potentially have an impact on the surrounding environment. For example, a memory exhaustion attack against an application could slow down the application as well as its host operating system. There are at least three distinct scenarios which can commonly lead to resource exhaustion:
Resource exhaustion problems are often result due to an incorrect implementation of the following situations:
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:
The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.
The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.