Vulnerability · Published Sep 17, 2021 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2021-39219Wrong type for `Linker`-define functions when used across two `Engine`s
Medium 6.3
In plain English
A medium-severity type confusion in wasmtime from bytecodealliance. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.4% (higher than 30% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
Wasmtime is an open source runtime for WebAssembly & WASI. Wasmtime before version 0.30.0 is affected by a type confusion vulnerability. As a Rust library the `wasmtime` crate clearly marks which functions are safe and which are `unsafe`, guaranteeing that if consumers never use `unsafe` then it should not be possible to have memory unsafety issues in their embeddings of Wasmtime. An issue was discovered in the safe API of `Linker::func_*` APIs. These APIs were previously not sound when one `Engine` was used to create the `Linker` and then a different `Engine` was used to create a `Store` and then the `Linker` was used to instantiate a module into that `Store`. Cross-`Engine` usage of functions is not supported in Wasmtime and this can result in type confusion of function pointers, resulting in being able to safely call a function with the wrong type. Triggering this bug requires using at least two `Engine` values in an embedding and then additionally using two different values with a `Linker` (one at the creation time of the `Linker` and another when instantiating a module with the `Linker`). It's expected that usage of more-than-one `Engine` in an embedding is relatively rare since an `Engine` is intended to be a globally shared resource, so the expectation is that the impact of this issue is relatively small. The fix implemented is to change this behavior to `panic!()` in Rust instead of silently allowing it. Using different `Engine` instances with a `Linker` is a programmer bug that `wasmtime` catches at runtime. This bug has been patched and users should upgrade to Wasmtime version 0.30.0. If you cannot upgrade Wasmtime and are using more than one `Engine` in your embedding it's recommended to instead use only one `Engine` for the entire program if possible. An `Engine` is designed to be a globally shared resource that is suitable to have only one for the lifetime of an entire process. If using multiple `Engine`s is required then code should be audited to ensure that `Linker` is only used with one `Engine`.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| PyPI | wasmtime | 0.30.0 | GHSA-4873-36h9-wv49 |
| PyPI | wasmtime | 0.30.0 | GHSA-q879-9g95-56mx |
| PyPI | wasmtime | 0.30.0 | GHSA-v4cp-h94r-m7xf |
| PyPI | wasmtime | 0.30.0 | PYSEC-2021-320 |
| PyPI | wasmtime | 0.30.0 | PYSEC-2021-321 |
| PyPI | wasmtime | 0.30.0 | PYSEC-2021-322 |
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| bytecodealliance | wasmtime | <= 0.29.0 |
Weakness: CWE-843 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
References
- https://crates.io/crates/wasmtime x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime/security/advisories/GHSA-q879-9g95-56mx x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime/commit/b39f087414f27ae40c44449ed5d1154e03449bff x_refsource_MISC
- FEDORA-2021-68713440cb vendor-advisory, x_refsource_FEDORA
- FEDORA-2021-1805eacb48 vendor-advisory, x_refsource_FEDORA