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Deserialization of Untrusted Data in Flask-Caching

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jun 18, 2021 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Aug 16, 2023

Package

pip Flask-Caching (pip)

Affected versions

<= 1.10.1

Patched versions

None

Description

Flask-Cache adds easy cache support to Flask. The Flask-Caching extension through 1.10.1 for Flask relies on Pickle for serialization, which may lead to remote code execution or local privilege escalation. If an attacker gains access to cache storage (e.g., filesystem, Memcached, Redis, etc.), they can construct a crafted payload, poison the cache, and execute Python code.

However, this is not a high-severity issue, as for an attack like this to work, an attacker must:

  1. Be able to write arbitrary values to the cache
  2. Be able to generate a cache key that will collide with a value being read by the application
  3. Cause the application to read a maliciously-injected value

Any situation where all 3 of those is true is a situation where the application has larger problems; for example, if someone's able to inject malicious cached rendered pages into a Flask app's cache, then they can make the website say literally anything they want, regardless of whether it involves the execution of remote code. Basically, the Pickle vulnerability follows from a website already being extremely vulnerable (due to conditions 1 and 2 being met).

References

Published by the National Vulnerability Database May 13, 2021
Reviewed May 17, 2021
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jun 18, 2021
Last updated Aug 16, 2023

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
High
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

EPSS score

1.131%
(85th percentile)

CVE ID

CVE-2021-33026

GHSA ID

GHSA-656c-6cxf-hvcv

Source code

Credits

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