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GHSA-547r-qmjm-8hvw
No affected components available
Summary
A Markdown front-matter block that contains JavaScript delimiter causes the JS engine in gray-matter library to execute arbitrary code in the Markdown to PDF converter process of md-to-pdf library, resulting in remote code execution.
Details
md-to-pdf uses the gray-matter library to parse front-matter. Gray-matter exposes a JavaScript engine that, when enabled or triggered by certain front-matter delimiters (e.g. ---js or ---javascript), will evaluate the front-matter contents as JavaScript. If user-supplied Markdown is fed to md-to-pdf and the front-matter contains malicious JS, the converter process will execute that code.
PoC
const { mdToPdf } = require('md-to-pdf');
var payload = '---javascript\n((require("child_process")).execSync("calc.exe"))\n---RCE';
(async () => {
await mdToPdf({ content: payload }, { dest: './output.pdf'});
})();
Running the PoC on Windows launches the calculator application, demonstrating arbitrary code execution.
Impact
- Remote code execution in the process that performs Markdown->PDF conversion.
- If the converter is run in a web app or cloud service, an attacker uploading malicious Markdown can execute arbitrary commands on the
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 vulnerability can affect other systems as well, not just the initial system. 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.
Active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. Immediate patching or mitigation is required.
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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