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GHSA-3j69-69wj-xqx2
No affected components available
Summary
ujson.dumps() (or ujson.dump() or ujson.encode()) have a reject_bytes=False option. When set, they may accept malformed or truncated UTF-8 byte sequences, silently rewriting them into different Unicode characters instead of rejecting them. This leads to input validation bypass and data integrity issues.
Details
The expected behavior is that for x being any bytes string, x == ujson.loads(ujson.dumps(x, reject_bytes=False)).encode(errors="surrogatepass") should always either be true or ujson.dumps() will throw an exception. In reality, some strings which should've been errors are silently rewritten as other strings:
- Invalid continuation bytes are replaced with valid ones:
b'\xcf\x13'->b'\xcf\x93' - Unterminated sequence completes the sequence:
b'\xc3'->b'\xc3\x80' - ... or leads to reading past the end of string:
b'\xf0\x90\x94'->b"\xf0\x90\x94\x80inxcontrib'"
Impact
An application relying on reject_bytes=False for UTF-8 handling may experience:
- Data integrity issues
- Experience validation bypass if said validation occurs before serialisation
Remediation
The missing/broken UTF-8 validation checks were added/fixed in https://github.com/ultrajson/ultrajson/commit/169eaf36b1116fece5034ee79a7a0ef3f6deedcf. We recommend upgrading to UltraJSON 5.13.0.
Workarounds
Decoding bytes to strings in Python before passing them to ujson.dumps() avoids this issue.
The vulnerability can be exploited over the network without needing physical access. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker does not need any special privileges or access rights. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a low impact on the confidentiality of the information. There is a low impact on the integrity of the data.
Exploitation attempts have been detected. Elevated vigilance and prompt remediation are advised.
The exploit probability is very low. The vulnerability is unlikely to be exploited in the next 30 days.
We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.
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