Proof-of-concept exploit code has been published for a critical remote code execution flaw in protobuf.js, a widely used JavaScript implementation of Google’s Protocol Buffers.
The tool is highly popular in the Node Package Manager (npm) registry, with an average of nearly 50 million weekly downloads. It is used for inter-service communication, in real-time applications, and for efficient storage of structured data in databases and cloud environments.
In a report on Friday, application security company Endor Labs says that the remote code execution vulnerability (RCE) in protobuf.js is caused by unsafe dynamic code generation.
The security issue has not received an official CVE number and is currently being tracked as GHSA-xq3m-2v4x-88gg, the identifier assigned by GitHub.
Endor Labs explains that the library builds JavaScript functions from protobuf schemas by concatenating strings and executing them via the Function() constructor, but it fails to validate schema-derived identifiers, such as message names.
This lets an attacker supply a malicious schema that injects arbitrary code into the generated function, which is then executed when the application processes a message using that schema.
This opens the path to RCE on servers or applications that load attacker-influenced schemas, granting access to environment variables, credentials, databases, and internal systems, and even allowing lateral movement within the infrastructure.
The attack could also affect developer machines if those load and decode untrusted schemas locally.
The flaw impacts protobuf.js versions 8.0.0/7.5.4 and lower. Endor Labs recommends upgrading to 8.0.1 and 7.5.5, which address the issue.
The patch sanitizes type names by stripping non-alphanumeric characters, preventing the attacker from closing the synthetic function. However, Endor comments that a longer-term fix would be to stop round-tripping attacker-reachable identifiers through Function at all.
Endor Labs is warning that “exploitation is straightforward,” and that the minimal proof-of-concept (PoC) included in the security advisory reflects this. However, no active exploitation in the wild has been observed to date.
The vulnerability was reported by Endor Labs researcher and security bug bounty hunter Cristian Staicu on March 2, and the protobuf.js maintainers released a patch on GitHub on March 11. Fixes to the npm packages were made available on April 4 for the 8.x branch and on April 15 for the 7.x branch.
Apart from upgrading to patched versions, Endor Labs also recommends that system administrators audit transitive dependencies, treat schema-loading as untrusted input, and prefer precompiled/static schemas in production.
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