CVE-2023-32684 In Lima, a malicious disk image could read a single file on the host filesystem as a qcow2/vmdk backing file
A malicious disk image in Lima VMs can read arbitrary host files by exploiting backing file path injection, affecting developers using Lima.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- A user has to click or open something
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2023-32684?
CVE-2023-32684 is a low-severity path traversal vulnerability in lima-vm lima, published on 30 May 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Official description
Lima launches Linux virtual machines, typically on macOS, for running containerd. Prior to version 0.16.0, a virtual machine instance with a malicious disk image could read a single file on the host filesystem, even when no filesystem is mounted from the host. The official templates of Lima and the well-known third party products (Colima, Rancher Desktop, and Finch) are unlikely to be affected by this issue. To exploit this issue, the attacker has to embed the target file path (an absolute or a relative path from the instance directory) in a malicious disk image, as the qcow2 (or vmdk) backing file path string. As Lima refuses to run as the root, it is practically impossible for the attacker to read the entire host disk via `/dev/rdiskN`. Also, practically, the attacker cannot read at least the first 512 bytes (MBR) of the target file. The issue has been patched in Lima in version 0.16.0 by prohibiting using a backing file path in the VM base image.
Weakness: CWE-552
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-32684?
3 open source packages ship an affected version, including github.com/lima-vm/lima. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
github.com/lima-vm/lima Go | All versions | 0.16.0 |
github.com/lima-vm/lima Go | All versions | 0.16.0 |
github.com/lima-vm/lima Go | All versions | 0.16.0 |
Products include Linuxfoundation Lima.
How do I fix CVE-2023-32684?
Upgrade github.com/lima-vm/lima to 0.16.0 or later.
Upgrade, and resolve every user-supplied path against an allowed base folder before opening it. More about Path traversal.
Is CVE-2023-32684 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-32684 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-f7qw-jj9c-rpq9, GO-2023-1803.