Quick answers
- Is CVE-2019-16776 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2019-16776 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2019-16776?
- Low severity, with a CVSS score of 3.1, published 13 December 2019.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- npm (npm) <6.13.3.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2019-16776?
- A patch was published on 2019-12-13: npm 6.13.3 released Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.
- How is CVE-2019-16776 attacked?
- It is attacked over the network, in a software library.
- Am I affected by CVE-2019-16776?
- Check whether you run npm (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
npm CLI versions before 6.13.3 fail to validate symlink targets in the bin field of package.json, allowing packages to create symlinks that point outside the node_modules directory. An attacker can craft a malicious package with a bin entry that symlinks to arbitrary filesystem paths, leading to arbitrary file write or read depending on the target location and user permissions. The attack requires package installation and bypasses the --ignore-scripts flag; however, it does not work through install scripts. The vulnerability was patched in npm 6.13.3. The attack is exploitable via the package manager's normal installation workflow without requiring user interaction beyond running npm install.
Affected products
- npm npm <6.13.3
Identifiers
- CVE-2019-16776
- GHSA-x8qc-rrcw-4r46
Timeline
- 2019-12-13: disclosed
- 2019-12-13: patched: npm 6.13.3 released