CVE-2021-39159 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Code Injection vulnerability in binderhub. A fix is available for binderhub — see the affected versions and patch details below.
remote code execution via git repo provider
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-39159 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
binderhubReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
A remote code execution vulnerability has been identified in BinderHub, where providing BinderHub with maliciously crafted input could execute code in the BinderHub context, with the potential to egress credentials of the BinderHub deployment, including JupyterHub API tokens, kubernetes service accounts, and docker registry credentials. This may provide the ability to manipulate images and other user created pods in the deployment, with the potential to escalate to the host depending on the underlying kubernetes configuration.
Patches
Patch below, or on GitHub
From 9f4043d9dddc1174920e687773f27b7933f48ab6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Riccardo Castellotti <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 15:49:43 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] Explicitly separate git-ls-remote options from positional
arguments
---
binderhub/repoproviders.py | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/binderhub/repoproviders.py b/binderhub/repoproviders.py
index f33347b..5d4b87c 100755
--- a/binderhub/repoproviders.py
+++ b/binderhub/repoproviders.py
@@ -484,7 +484,7 @@ class GitRepoProvider(RepoProvider):
self.sha1_validate(self.unresolved_ref)
except ValueError:
# The ref is a head/tag and we resolve it using `git ls-remote`
- command = ["git", "ls-remote", self.repo, self.unresolved_ref]
+ command = ["git", "ls-remote", "--", self.repo, self.unresolved_ref]
result = subprocess.run(command, universal_newlines=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
if result.returncode:
raise RuntimeError("Unable to run git ls-remote to get the `resolved_ref`: {}".format(result.stderr))
--
2.25.1
Workarounds
Disable the git repo provider by specifying the BinderHub.repo_providers config, e.g.:
from binderhub.repoproviders import (GitHubRepoProvider,
GitLabRepoProvider, GistRepoProvider,
ZenodoProvider, FigshareProvider, HydroshareProvider,
DataverseProvider)
c.BinderHub.repo_providers = {
'gh': GitHubRepoProvider,
'gist': GistRepoProvider,
'gl': GitLabRepoProvider,
'zenodo': ZenodoProvider,
'figshare': FigshareProvider,
'hydroshare': HydroshareProvider,
'dataverse': DataverseProvider,
}
References
Credit: Jose Carlos Luna Duran (CERN) and Riccardo Castellotti (CERN).
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Email us at [email protected]
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | binderhub | all versions | 0.2.0pip install --upgrade 'binderhub==0.2.0' |
Affected Products
binderhubjupyterDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for binderhub, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update binderhub to 0.2.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-39159 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-39159 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.