CVE-2022-21668

Pipenv prior to 2022.1.8 allows remote code execution via malicious requirements files

• CVSS 8.6
• CWE-190
• Input Validation and Sanitization
• Remote

pipenv is a Python development workflow tool. Starting with version 2018.10.9 and prior to version 2022.1.8, a flaw in pipenv's parsing of requirements files allows an attacker to insert a specially crafted string inside a comment anywhere within a requirements.txt file, which will cause victims who use pipenv to install the requirements file to download dependencies from a package index server controlled by the attacker. By embedding malicious code in packages served from their malicious index server, the attacker can trigger arbitrary remote code execution (RCE) on the victims' systems. If an attacker is able to hide a malicious `–index-url` option in a requirements file that a victim installs with pipenv, the attacker can embed arbitrary malicious code in packages served from their malicious index server that will be executed on the victim's host during installation (remote code execution/RCE). When pip installs from a source distribution, any code in the setup.py is executed by the install process. This issue is patched in version 2022.1.8. The GitHub Security Advisory contains more information about this vulnerability.

CVE

CVE-2022-21668

CWE

CWE-190

CVSS base score

8.6

Published

2022-01-10

OWASP

A06 Vulnerable and Outdated Components

Orthogonal defect classification

Function

Code defect classification

Incorrect Functionality

Category

Input Validation and Sanitization

Subcategory

Insecure Parsing or Deserialization

Accessibility scope

Remote

Impact

Arbitrary Code Execution

Fixed by upgrading

Yes

Solution

Update pipenv to version 2022.1.8 or higher.

def parse_requirements(requirements_content):
    requirements = []
    for line in requirements_content.splitlines():
        if line.strip() and not line.startswith('#'):
            requirements.append(line)
    return requirements

requirements_txt = """
# --index-url=https://example.com/simple
requests==2.25.1
flask==1.1.2
"""

parsed_requirements = parse_requirements(requirements_txt)
print("Parsed requirements:", parsed_requirements)

import re

def parse_requirements(requirements_content):
    requirements = []
    for line in requirements_content.splitlines():
        if line.startswith('#'):
            continue
        if re.search(r'--index-url', line):
            raise ValueError("Malicious index-url detected in requirements.")
        requirements.append(line)
    return requirements

requirements_txt = """
requests==2.25.1
# --index-url=https://example.com/simple
flask==1.1.2
"""

try:
    parsed_requirements = parse_requirements(requirements_txt)
    print("Safe requirements:", parsed_requirements)
except ValueError as e:
    print(e)

@misc{vaitp:cve202221668,
  title        = {{Pipenv prior to 2022.1.8 allows remote code execution via malicious requirements files}},
  author       = {Bogaerts, Fr\'ed\'eric and Ivaki, Naghmeh and Fonseca, Jos\'e},
  year         = {2022},
  note         = {VAITP Python Vulnerability Dataset, entry CVE-2022-21668},
  howpublished = {\url{https://netpack.pt/vaitp/vulnerability/CVE-2022-21668/}}
}