Shescape is a simple shell escape library for JavaScript. Prior to 2.1.9, an attacker may be able to bypass escaping for the shell being used. This can result, for example, in exposure of sensitive information. This impacts users of Shescape that configure their shell to point to a file on disk that is a link to a link. The precise result of being affected depends on the actual shell used and incorrect shell identified by Shescape. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.1.9.
The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.
There are many different kinds of mistakes that introduce information exposures. The severity of the error can range widely, depending on the context in which the product operates, the type of sensitive information that is revealed, and the benefits it may provide to an attacker. Some kinds of sensitive information include:
Information might be sensitive to different parties, each of which may have their own expectations for whether the information should be protected. These parties include:
Information exposures can occur in different ways:
It is common practice to describe any loss of confidentiality as an “information exposure,” but this can lead to overuse of CWE-200 in CWE mapping. From the CWE perspective, loss of confidentiality is a technical impact that can arise from dozens of different weaknesses, such as insecure file permissions or out-of-bounds read. CWE-200 and its lower-level descendants are intended to cover the mistakes that occur in behaviors that explicitly manage, store, transfer, or cleanse sensitive information.