CVE-2024-51481 Nix allows macOS sandbox escape via built-in builders
Attackers can bypass macOS sandbox restrictions in Nix built-in builders to read or write files outside the sandbox, requiring sandboxing to be enabled.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- A user has to click or open something
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2024-51481?
CVE-2024-51481 is a low-severity vulnerability in NixOS nix, published on 31 Oct 2024. 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
Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. On macOS, built-in builders (such as `builtin:fetchurl`, exposed to users with `import <nix/fetchurl.nix>`) were not executed in the macOS sandbox. Thus, these builders (which are running under the `nixbld*` users) had read access to world-readable paths and write access to world-writable paths outside of the sandbox. This issue is fixed in 2.18.9, 2.19.7, 2.20.9, 2.21.5, 2.22.4, 2.23.4, and 2.24.10. Note that sandboxing is not enabled by default on macOS. The Nix sandbox is not primarily intended as a security mechanism, but as an aid to improve reproducibility and purity of Nix builds. However, sandboxing *can* mitigate the impact of other security issues by limiting what parts of the host system a build has access to.
Weakness: CWE-693
Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-51481?
How do I fix CVE-2024-51481?
No fix has been published for CVE-2024-51481 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
Is CVE-2024-51481 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-51481 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-wf4c-57rh-9pjg.