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Vulnerability · Published Mar 30, 2021 · Assigned by GitHub_M

CVE-2021-21413Misuse of `Reference` and other transferable APIs may lead to access to nodejs isolate

High 8.0

In plain English

A high-severity security flaw in isolated-vm from laverdet. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.7% (higher than 54% of all known vulnerabilities). Ready-made attack tooling exists: public proof-of-concept code. Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)8.0High
Exploit odds (30 days)0.7%top 45.9% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsnot in CISA KEV
Attack tooling1Public PoC

Official description

isolated-vm is a library for nodejs which gives you access to v8's Isolate interface. Versions of isolated-vm before v4.0.0 have API pitfalls which may make it easy for implementers to expose supposed secure isolates to the permissions of the main nodejs isolate. Reference objects allow access to the underlying reference's full prototype chain. In an environment where the implementer has exposed a Reference instance to an attacker they would be able to use it to acquire a Reference to the nodejs context's Function object. Similar application-specific attacks could be possible by modifying the local prototype of other API objects. Access to NativeModule objects could allow an attacker to load and run native code from anywhere on the filesystem. If combined with, for example, a file upload API this would allow for arbitrary code execution. This is addressed in v4.0.0 through a series of related changes.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
npmisolated-vm4.0.0GHSA-mmhj-4w6j-76h7

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
laverdet isolated-vm < 4.0.0

Weakness: CWE-913 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N

References