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GHSA-3r3g-g73x-g593
No affected components available
Impact
coreos-installer fails to correctly verify GPG signatures when decompressing gzip-compressed artifacts. This allows bypass of signature verification in cases where coreos-installer decompresses a downloaded OS image, allowing an attacker who can modify the OS image to compromise a newly-installed system.
Default installations from ISO or PXE media in Fedora CoreOS, RHEL CoreOS, and RHEL for Edge are not affected, as coreos-installer installs from an OS image shipped as part of the install media.
These flows are affected:
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Installing with
--image-file,--image-url, orcoreos.inst.image_url. For example, if a user has a local mirror of installation images, an attacker could replace an image with a gzip-compressed alternative (even if the file extension is.xz). The result:$ coreos-installer install --image-url http://localhost:8080/image.xz /dev/loop0 Downloading image from http://localhost:8080/image.xz Downloading signature from http://localhost:8080/image.xz.sig > Read disk 749.9 MiB/749.9 MiB (100%) gpg: Signature made Mon 20 Sep 2021 02:41:50 PM EDT gpg: using RSA key 8C5BA6990BDB26E19F2A1A801161AE6945719A39 gpg: BAD signature from "Fedora (34) <fedora-34-primary@fedoraproject.org>" [ultimate] Install complete.Notice that GPG reports a bad signature, but coreos-installer continues anyway. Automation that relies on coreos-installer's exit status will not notice either.
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coreos-installer download --decompress --image-url:$ coreos-installer download --decompress --image-url http://localhost:8080/image.xz > Read disk 749.9 MiB/749.9 MiB (100%) gpg: Signature made Mon 20 Sep 2021 02:41:50 PM EDT gpg: using RSA key 8C5BA6990BDB26E19F2A1A801161AE6945719A39 gpg: BAD signature from "Fedora (34) <fedora-34-primary@fedoraproject.org>" [ultimate] ./imageAgain, coreos-installer reports success.
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Installing with default parameters, when not installing from the image built into live ISO or PXE media, if the hosting service is compromised or if an active attacker gains control of the HTTPS response.
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coreos-installer download --decompressif the hosting service is compromised or if an active attacker gains control of the HTTPS response.
Patches
The vulnerability is fixed in coreos-installer 0.10.1.
Workarounds
For coreos-installer download, do not use the -d or --decompress options.
For coreos-installer install, manually inspect the stderr output. If BAD signature appears, do not boot from the target disk. Note, however, that some OS services may have already accessed data on the compromised disk.
References
For more information, see PR 655.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, open an issue in coreos-installer or email the CoreOS development mailing list.
The vulnerability requires local access to the device to be exploited. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker does not need any special privileges or access rights. The attacker needs the user to perform some action, like clicking a link. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a high impact on the confidentiality of the information. There is a high impact on the integrity of the data. There is a high impact on the availability of the system.
Exploitation activity has been observed. Apply available patches or mitigations urgently.
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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