GHSA-p9v8-q5m4-pf46
MEDIUMGHSA-p9v8-q5m4-pf46 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4) Improper Input Validation vulnerability in github.com/snapcore/snapd. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-p9v8-q5m4-pf46 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
CVE-2024-5138: snapd snapctl auth bypass
Blast Radius
github.com/snapcore/snapd🐹github.com/snapcore/snapdReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
A snap with prior permissions to create a mount entry on the host, such as firefox, normally uses the permission from one of the per-snap hook programs. A unprivileged users cannot normally trigger that behaviour by using snap run --shell firefox followed by snapctl mount, since snapd validates the requesting user identity (root or non-root). The issue allows unprivileged users to bypass that check by crafting a malicious command line vector which confuses snapd into thinking the help message is requested.
Unprivileged user on a default installation of Ubuntu, where firefox is as provided as a snap, may cause a denial-of-service attack by repeatedly mounting hunspell database over and over and eventually exhausting system memory.
Other attacks, reliant on the same underying mechanism (mount), are possible. In all cases the snap must be installed and grated permission to perform this action (by connecting an appropriate snap interface), which requires administrative privileges. As such we are focusing on the case of default installation where an unprivileged user may exploit this behavior.
Patches
Patch: https://github.com/canonical/snapd/commit/68ee9c6aa916ab87dbfd9a26030690f2cabf1e14 Release: Available from Snapd 2.64
Workarounds
Users may disconnect any instances of the mount-control interface to prevent snapd from creating such mount points. For example, the firefox snap has the host-hunspell plug, which is of type mount-control. The interface can be disconnected with:
sudo snap disconnect firefox:host-hunspell
References
The original bug report was made on Launchpad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/snapd/+bug/2065077 CVE.org: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-5138 Canonical: https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2024-5138
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/snapcore/snapd | ≥ 2.51.6&&< 2.63.1 | 2.63.1 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/snapcore/snapd | all versions | 0.0.0-20240524114846-68ee9c6aa916 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/snapcore/snapd. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update github.com/snapcore/snapd to 2.63.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-p9v8-q5m4-pf46 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-p9v8-q5m4-pf46 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-p9v8-q5m4-pf46. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-p9v8-q5m4-pf46 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-p9v8-q5m4-pf46 across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.