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GHSA-fx5j-qcqg-grpf
Negative shared-string index causes panic in GetCellValue and GetRows
Summary
Excelize parses shared-string cell values with strconv.Atoi and checks only the upper bound before indexing the shared string slice. If an XLSX file contains a shared-string cell with <v>-1</v>, the parsed index is negative. The upper-bound check still passes (len(sharedStrings) > -1), and Excelize indexes sharedStrings[-1], causing a runtime panic.
This was reproduced on the current default branch commit 1213a8bd7c5ab360554603ac5c995ccaf6eb4314 and the latest release tag v2.10.1 (5ad5ab3af0054c55bdce09f1530085600e9f2e45). The issue is independent from the row-bound allocation report, so I am reporting it separately.
Affected package
- Package:
github.com/xuri/excelize/v2 - Tested affected versions: current default branch at
1213a8bd7c5ab360554603ac5c995ccaf6eb4314, and releasev2.10.1 - Fixed version: none known at the time of this report
Impact
An attacker who can provide an XLSX file to an application using Excelize can trigger a process panic when the application reads the malicious cell through common APIs such as GetCellValue or GetRows. In services that parse untrusted spreadsheets without a panic recovery boundary, this can cause denial of service.
Root cause
For shared-string cells (t="s"), xlsxC.getValueFrom() parses the cell value as a shared-string index and only checks whether the index is below len(d.SI) before indexing:
xlsxSI, _ := strconv.Atoi(strings.TrimSpace(c.V))
if len(d.SI) > xlsxSI {
return d.SI[xlsxSI].String(), nil
}
For xlsxSI == -1, len(d.SI) > -1 is true, so the code proceeds to index d.SI[-1] and panics.
Minimal worksheet payload
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<worksheet xmlns="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main">
<sheetData>
<row r="1"><c r="A1" t="s"><v>-1</v></c></row>
</sheetData>
</worksheet>
The workbook also contains a normal sharedStrings.xml with one string (ok), so the failure is specifically due to accepting a negative index.
Reproduction
Calling GetCellValue("Sheet1", "A1") on the workbook panics:
== negative shared string GetCellValue ==
elapsed=0s alloc_delta=0MB
PANIC: runtime.boundsError runtime error: index out of range [-1]
Calling GetRows("Sheet1") on the same workbook also panics:
== negative shared string GetRows ==
elapsed=0s alloc_delta=0MB
PANIC: runtime.boundsError runtime error: index out of range [-1]
The same results were observed on current default branch commit 1213a8bd7c5ab360554603ac5c995ccaf6eb4314 and on release v2.10.1.
Expected behavior
Malformed shared-string indices should be rejected or treated as missing/invalid string references without panicking.
Suggested remediation
Check both lower and upper bounds before indexing the shared string table. For example:
if xlsxSI >= 0 && xlsxSI < len(d.SI) {
return d.SI[xlsxSI].String(), nil
}
Add regression tests for GetCellValue() and GetRows() on t="s" cells whose <v> value is negative.
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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.
Limited exploitation activity has been observed. Close monitoring and planned remediation are recommended.
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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