CVE-2022-23522

EUVD-2023-0147 · Published Mar 30, 2023

Arbitrary file write in mindsdb when Extracting Tarballs retrieved from a remote location

Summary

An unsafe extraction is being performed using shutil.unpack_archive() from a remotely retrieved tarball. Which may lead to the writing of the extracted files to an unintended location. This vulnerability is sometimes called a TarSlip or a ZipSlip variant.

Details

Unpacking files using the high-level function shutil.unpack_archive() from a potentially malicious tarball without validating that the destination file path remained within the intended destination directory may cause files to be overwritten outside the destination directory.

As can be seen in the vulnerable snippet code source, an archive is being retrieved using the download_file() function from a remote location which is a user-provided permanent storage bucket s3. Immediately after being retrieved, the tarball is unsafely unpacked using the function shutil.unpack_archive().

The vulnerable code is L128..L129 in fs.py file.

    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        if 's3_credentials' in self.config['permanent_storage']:
            self.s3 = boto3.client('s3', **self.config['permanent_storage']['s3_credentials'])
        else:
            self.s3 = boto3.client('s3')
       
        # User provided remote storage!
        self.bucket = self.config['permanent_storage']['bucket'] 

    def get(self, local_name, base_dir):
        remote_name = local_name
        remote_ziped_name = f'{remote_name}.tar.gz'
        local_ziped_name = f'{local_name}.tar.gz'
        local_ziped_path = os.path.join(base_dir, local_ziped_name)
        os.makedirs(base_dir, exist_ok=True)
        
        # Retrieve a potentially malicious tarball
        self.s3.download_file(self.bucket, remote_ziped_name, local_ziped_path)

        # Perform an unsafe extraction
        shutil.unpack_archive(local_ziped_path, base_dir)

        os.system(f'chmod -R 777 {base_dir}')
        os.remove(local_ziped_path)

PoC

The following PoC is provided for illustration purposes only. It showcases the risk of extracting a non-harmless text file sim4n6.txt to one of the parent locations rather than the intended current folder.

> tar --list -f archive.tar
tar: Removing leading "../../../" from member names
../../../sim4n6.txt

> python3 
Python 3.10.6 (main, Nov  2 2022, 18:53:38) [GCC 11.3.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import shutil
>>> shutil.unpack_archive("archive.tar")
>>> exit()

> test -f ../../../sim4n6.txt && echo "sim4n6.txt exists"
sim4n6.txt exists

Attack Scenario

An attacker could craft a malicious tarball with a filename path, such as ../../../../../../../../etc/passwd, and then serve the archive remotely using a personal bucket s3, thus, retrieve the tarball through mindsdb and overwrite the system files of the hosting server.

Mitigation

Potential mitigation could be to:

Use a safer module, like zipfile.
Validate the location of the extracted files and discard those with malicious paths such as relative path .. or absolute path such as /etc/password.
Perform a checksum verification for the retrieved archive, but hard-coding the hashes may be cumbersome and difficult to manage.

Technologies

Mindsdb Mindsdb

Weaknesses

CWE-22

CVSS scores

v3.18.5CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N

MITRE ATT&CK

Inferred

Where this vulnerability fits in an attack

ReconImpact

Initial Access

T1190Exploit Public-Facing Application

References

Potentially impacted assets

See if this affects your attack surface

Latest trending attack

Criticalyesterday

Google Brotli decoder - Remote Code Execution via compressed requests (Exploitation Check)

This control is the second step of the Patrowl response to CVE-2026-111497 (Node2Shell). It complements the first control of 22 October 2026, which focused on the Node.js runtime, and does not replace it. Why a second control CVE-2026-111497 is an out-of-bounds write in the Google Brotli decoder, the library that decompresses Brotli ("br") data. It was first published as a Node.js vulnerability, because Node.js bundles this decoder. Later publications showed that the flaw is in the library itself. Every product that embeds an affected version of the decoder is concerned, whatever its language or vendor. A public proof of concept demonstrates code execution. Any server that decompresses request bodies sent with "Content-Encoding: br" exposes the decoder to unauthenticated attackers. Known cases include Express 5 and NestJS 11 on Node.js, Koa and Fastify setups, Bun, Envoy and Istio with request decompression enabled, and any application or reverse proxy that decodes Brotli request bodies with an affected library. The flaw also works in the other direction. A malicious server can compromise an unpatched client that decodes a Brotli response, for example Node.js fetch(), Python clients (requests, httpx, aiohttp, Scrapy) with the Brotli or brotlicffi package, or libcurl builds with Brotli support. What this control checks Patrowl sends small, valid Brotli-compressed requests to each asset and observes whether the server decodes them. The check does not depend on the technology: it detects the behaviour, whatever the stack behind it. These requests are what any legitimate client could send. They never reach the vulnerable code path and cannot affect the availability of the service. How to read the result Potentially impacted means the asset decodes Brotli request bodies: the attack surface is exposed. It does not confirm that the asset is vulnerable. The version of the Brotli decoder in use is not visible from the outside. This check covers applications that parse request bodies on their root path. A Not impacted result does not rule out exposure on other routes, nor on the client side. Checking the versions on the servers remains the only exhaustive verification. Affected and fixed versions Google Brotli 1.0.3 to 1.2.0 are affected, fixed in 1.0.10, 1.1.1 and 1.2.1. Fixed releases of the main products embedding it: Node.js 22.23.4, 24.22.1 and 26.12.1 (end-of-life lines 20.x and older and 25.x receive no fix), Bun 1.4.4, Envoy 1.37.8, 1.38.6, 1.39.3 and 1.40.0, Istio 1.29.9, 1.30.6 and 1.31.2, Python Brotli 1.2.1 and brotlicffi 1.2.1.0. Products that link against the system library depend on the Brotli package of the Linux distribution. Recommendations Update every component that embeds the Brotli decoder (only real fix). Start with the assets flagged by this control. Restart the processes after the update. Rebuild containers, single-executable applications and appliances that bundle an affected runtime or library. Reduce the exposure until the update is deployed. Reject requests with "Content-Encoding: br" at the reverse proxy, load balancer or WAF, case-insensitively and including lists such as "gzip, br". On Envoy and Istio, disable request decompression for Brotli. Review outbound calls. List the features that fetch content from servers you do not control, and patch the services that host them first.