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.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)6.3Medium
Exploit odds (30 days)0.4%top 69.9% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsnot in CISA KEV
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

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

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
PyPIwasmtime0.30.0GHSA-4873-36h9-wv49
PyPIwasmtime0.30.0GHSA-q879-9g95-56mx
PyPIwasmtime0.30.0GHSA-v4cp-h94r-m7xf
PyPIwasmtime0.30.0PYSEC-2021-320
PyPIwasmtime0.30.0PYSEC-2021-321
PyPIwasmtime0.30.0PYSEC-2021-322

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
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