Quick answers
- Is This vulnerability exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of This vulnerability being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is This vulnerability?
- Informational severity, published 4 September 2020.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- bin-links (npm) prior to 1.1.5.
- Is there a fix for This vulnerability?
- A patch was published on 2020-09-04: Fix available in version 1.1.5 and later Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is This vulnerability attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a software library.
- Am I affected?
- Check whether you run bin-links (npm) at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
bin-links contains a path traversal vulnerability in its handling of the bin field in package.json. The package fails to validate or sanitize the bin field paths, allowing attackers to use path traversal sequences (e.g., "../../../") to escape the intended node_modules directory and write arbitrary files outside the intended scope. The vulnerability is triggered during package installation when a malicious package specifies bin paths that point outside the node_modules folder. While the vulnerability does not permit overwriting existing files, it enables creation of new arbitrary files, which can be leveraged for system compromise. The issue is fixed in version 1.1.5 and later.
Affected products
- npm bin-links prior to 1.1.5
Timeline
- 2020-09-04: disclosed
- 2020-09-04: patched: Fix available in version 1.1.5 and later