GHSA-w222-53c6-c86p — high GitHub Advisory (CVE-2018-1000006) in npm/electron

Description

Affected versions of electron may be susceptible to a remote code execution flaw when certain conditions are met:
1. The electron application is running on Windows.
2. The electron application registers as the default handler for a protocol, such as nodeapp://.

This vulnerability is caused by a failure to sanitize additional arguments to chromium in the command line handler for Electron.

MacOS and Linux are not vulnerable.

Recommendation

Update electron to a version that is not vulnerable. If updating is not possible, the electron team has provided the following guidance:

If for some reason you are unable to upgrade your Electron version, you can append -- as the last argument when calling app.setAsDefaultProtocolClient, which prevents Chromium from parsing further options. The double dash -- signifies the end of command options, after which only positional parameters are accepted.

app.setAsDefaultProtocolClient(protocol, process.execPath, [
  &#x27;--your-switches-here&#x27;,
  &#x27;--&#x27;
])

Basic information

Type: reviewed
Severity: high
Advisory on GitHub: Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory: —
Source code: Not specified
Published (advisory): 2018-01-23 03:57:44 UTC
Updated: 2023-01-09 05:03:38 UTC
GitHub reviewed: 2020-06-16 21:59:07 UTC

Score	Percentile
92.32%	99.72%

CVSS Scores

Base score	Version	Severity	Vector
8.8	3.0	—	`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H` Click to expand Attack vector (AV:N) Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine. Attack complexity (AC:L) Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup. Privileges required (PR:N) No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough. User interaction (UI:R) A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land. Scope (S:U) Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems. Confidentiality (C:H) Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way. Integrity (I:H) They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt. Availability (A:H) Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.

Identifiers

Type	Value
GHSA	GHSA-w222-53c6-c86p ↗
CVE	CVE-2018-1000006 ↗

CWEs

CWE id	Name
CWE-78	Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection')

Affected packages (3)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	First patched	Vulnerable functions
npm	electron	>= 1.7.0, < 1.7.11	1.7.11	—
npm	electron	>= 1.6.0, < 1.6.16	1.6.16	—
npm	electron	>= 1.8.0, <= 1.8.2-beta.3	1.8.2-beta.4	—

Remote Code Execution in electron