GHSA-x563-6hqv-26mr Ibis PyArrow dependency allows arbitrary code execution when loading a malicious data file

Not scored Published 17 Nov 2023

Deserialization of untrusted Parquet or IPC files in PyArrow allows arbitrary code execution, affecting Ibis users via Pandas or Dask backends.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Not needed
Attackable: Over the internet
Victim action needed: A user has to click or open something
Fix: Available

What is GHSA-x563-6hqv-26mr?

GHSA-x563-6hqv-26mr is an unsafe deserialization vulnerability in ibis-framework, published on 17 Nov 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

Official description

Impact

Deserialization of untrusted data in IPC and Parquet readers in PyArrow versions 0.14.0 to 14.0.0 allows arbitrary code execution. An application is vulnerable if it reads Arrow IPC, Feather or Parquet data from untrusted sources (for example user-supplied input files). This vulnerability only affects PyArrow, not other Apache Arrow implementations or bindings.

Note that Ibis itself makes extremely limited use of pyarrow.parquet.read_table:

read_table is used in tests, where the input file is entirely controlled by the Ibis developers
read_table is used in the ibis/examples/__init__.py as a fallback for backends that don't support reading Parquet directly. Parquet data used in ibis.examples are also managed by the Ibis developers. This Parquet data is generated from CSV files and SQLite databases.
The Pandas and Dask backends both use PyArrow to read Parquet files and are therefore affected.

Ibis does not make use of APIs that directly read from either Arrow IPC files or Feather files.

Patches

Ibis imports the pyarrow_hotfix package wherever pyarrow is used, as of version 7.1.0.

Upgrading to Arrow 14.0.1 is also a possible solution, starting in Ibis 7.1.0.

Workarounds

Install pyarrow_hotfix and run import pyarrow_hotfix ahead of any and all import ibis statements.

For example:

import ibis

becomes

import pyarrow_hotfix
import ibis

References

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-47248 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-47248

Which versions are affected by GHSA-x563-6hqv-26mr?

2 open source packages ship an affected version, including ibis-framework.

Package	Affected	Fixed in
`ibis-framework` PyPI	All versions	`7.1.0`
`ibis-framework` PyPI	All versions	`7.1.0`

How do I fix GHSA-x563-6hqv-26mr?

Upgrade ibis-framework to 7.1.0 or later.

Upgrade, and only deserialise data from trusted sources or with an allow-list of types. More about Unsafe deserialization.

Is GHSA-x563-6hqv-26mr being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of GHSA-x563-6hqv-26mr in the wild and no public exploit code.