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Overview

qs is a querystring parser that supports nesting and arrays, with a depth limit.

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Uncaught Exception in the isBuffer() function in lib/utils.js, which calls obj.constructor.isBuffer(obj) without checking that it is callable, reached from stringify() at lib/stringify.js:127. An attacker can throw an uncaught TypeError that fails each request with HTTP 500, and terminates the worker process when stringify() runs in an unguarded async context, by supplying a query string such as x[constructor][isBuffer]=y that sets constructor.isBuffer to a non-function value. This requires the application to call qs.parse() with plainObjects: true or allowPrototypes: true, which preserves the constructor own property, and to then pass the parsed result to qs.stringify().

Details

Denial of Service (DoS) describes a family of attacks, all aimed at making a system inaccessible to its intended and legitimate users.

Unlike other vulnerabilities, DoS attacks usually do not aim at breaching security. Rather, they are focused on making websites and services unavailable to genuine users resulting in downtime.

One popular Denial of Service vulnerability is DDoS (a Distributed Denial of Service), an attack that attempts to clog network pipes to the system by generating a large volume of traffic from many machines.

When it comes to open source libraries, DoS vulnerabilities allow attackers to trigger such a crash or crippling of the service by using a flaw either in the application code or from the use of open source libraries.

Two common types of DoS vulnerabilities:

• High CPU/Memory Consumption- An attacker sending crafted requests that could cause the system to take a disproportionate amount of time to process. For example, commons-fileupload:commons-fileupload.

• Crash - An attacker sending crafted requests that could cause the system to crash. For Example, npm ws package

Remediation

Upgrade qs to version 6.16.0 or higher.

References

• GitHub Advisory
• GitHub Commit

Overview

qs is a querystring parser that supports nesting and arrays, with a depth limit.

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in the parseArrayValue() comma-parsing logic, which applies the arrayLimit and throwOnLimitExceeded checks only to flat values, so a bracket-key input such as a[]=1,2,3,4 is treated as non-flat and its comma-split inner array is wrapped after parsing without ever being length-checked. An attacker can exceed the configured array limit and force excessive memory allocation by supplying a query string or form body that uses the bracket-key comma form, for example a[]=1,2,3,.... This requires the application to parse untrusted input with the comma: true option enabled alongside a configured arrayLimit or throwOnLimitExceeded.

PoC

const qs = require('qs')
const options = { comma: true, arrayLimit: 3, throwOnLimitExceeded: true }

const result = qs.parse('a[]=1,2,3,4', options)
console.log(result.a[0].length) // 4; expected RangeError

const big = qs.parse('a[]=' + '1,'.repeat(1000000) + '1', { comma: true, arrayLimit: 20 })
console.log(big.a[0].length) // 1000001

Details

Denial of Service (DoS) describes a family of attacks, all aimed at making a system inaccessible to its intended and legitimate users.

Unlike other vulnerabilities, DoS attacks usually do not aim at breaching security. Rather, they are focused on making websites and services unavailable to genuine users resulting in downtime.

One popular Denial of Service vulnerability is DDoS (a Distributed Denial of Service), an attack that attempts to clog network pipes to the system by generating a large volume of traffic from many machines.

When it comes to open source libraries, DoS vulnerabilities allow attackers to trigger such a crash or crippling of the service by using a flaw either in the application code or from the use of open source libraries.

Two common types of DoS vulnerabilities:

• High CPU/Memory Consumption- An attacker sending crafted requests that could cause the system to take a disproportionate amount of time to process. For example, commons-fileupload:commons-fileupload.

• Crash - An attacker sending crafted requests that could cause the system to crash. For Example, npm ws package

Remediation

Upgrade qs to version 6.16.0 or higher.

References

• GitHub Advisory
• GitHub Commit

Overview

qs is a querystring parser that supports nesting and arrays, with a depth limit.

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Improper Encoding or Escaping of Output via the stringify function when the allowEmptyArrays option is enabled. When an object key contains special characters (such as &, =, or #) and its value is an empty array, the key is returned without encoding, allowing an attacker who controls a key name to inject arbitrary query-string parameters or URL fragments into the serialized output. A consumer that parses the resulting string will see attacker-controlled key-value pairs that were not present in the original object.

PoC

var qs = require("qs");

var query = qs.stringify({ q: "hi", "x&apiKey=evil&y": [] }, { allowEmptyArrays: true });
// "q=hi&x&apiKey=evil&y[]"
qs.parse(query);
// { q: "hi", x: "", apiKey: "evil", y: [""] }

qs.stringify({ "x#": [], z: "1" }, { allowEmptyArrays: true });
// "x#[]&z=1": in a URL, everything after "#" becomes the fragment

Note: The PoC uses the qs npm package with the allowEmptyArrays option and states no specific runtime version or operating system.

Remediation

Upgrade qs to version 6.16.2 or higher.

References

• GitHub Advisory
• GitHub Commit
• GitHub Commit
• GitHub Issue
• GitHub PR

Overview

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime via the makeres function due to improperly deleting keys from the reqs object after execution of callbacks. This behavior causes the keys to remain in the reqs object, which leads to resource exhaustion.

Exploiting this vulnerability results in crashing the node process or in the application crash.

Note: This library is not maintained, and currently, there is no fix for this issue. To overcome this vulnerability, several dependent packages have eliminated the use of this library.

To trigger the memory leak, an attacker would need to have the ability to execute or influence the asynchronous operations that use the inflight module within the application. This typically requires access to the internal workings of the server or application, which is not commonly exposed to remote users. Therefore, “Attack vector” is marked as “Local”.

PoC

const inflight = require('inflight');

function testInflight() {
  let i = 0;
  function scheduleNext() {
    let key = `key-${i++}`;
    const callback = () => {
    };
    for (let j = 0; j < 1000000; j++) {
      inflight(key, callback);
    }

    setImmediate(scheduleNext);
  }


  if (i % 100 === 0) {
    console.log(process.memoryUsage());
  }

  scheduleNext();
}

testInflight();

Remediation

There is no fixed version for inflight.

References

• GitHub Issue
• GitHub PR

LGPL-3.0 license