CPython ReDoS via Regex in tarfile Header Parsing
CVE-2024-6232 Published on September 3, 2024

Regular-expression DoS when parsing TarFile headers
There is a MEDIUM severity vulnerability affecting CPython. Regular expressions that allowed excessive backtracking during tarfile.TarFile header parsing are vulnerable to ReDoS via specifically-crafted tar archives.

Vendor Advisory NVD

Vulnerability Analysis

CVE-2024-6232 is exploitable with network access, and does not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have no impact on confidentiality and integrity, and a high impact on availability.

Attack Vector:
NETWORK
Attack Complexity:
LOW
Privileges Required:
NONE
User Interaction:
NONE
Scope:
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact:
NONE
Integrity Impact:
NONE
Availability Impact:
HIGH

Weakness Type

What is a ReDoS Vulnerability?

The product uses a regular expression with an inefficient, possibly exponential worst-case computational complexity that consumes excessive CPU cycles. Some regular expression engines have a feature called "backtracking". If the token cannot match, the engine "backtracks" to a position that may result in a different token that can match. Backtracking becomes a weakness if all of these conditions are met:

CVE-2024-6232 has been classified to as a ReDoS vulnerability or weakness.


Products Associated with CVE-2024-6232

You can be notified by email with stack.watch whenever vulnerabilities like CVE-2024-6232 are published in these products:

Python
 
Canonical Ubuntu Linux
 
Oracle
 
Cpython
 

Affected Versions

Python Software Foundation CPython: cpython:

Exploit Probability

EPSS
2.87%
Percentile
86.07%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.