CVE-2018-21000: Safe transmute Heap Overflow Or Corruption Vulnerability

CRITICAL
Advisory Identifier: GHSA-2v78-j59h-fmpf
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CVSS 9.8
CWE-119
Published
Advisory Summary

CVE-2018-21000 is a CRITICAL (CVSS 9.8) heap overflow or corruption vulnerability (CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer) affecting Safe transmute libraries in the crates.io ecosystem. The issue involves heap overflow or corruption in safe-transmute. Remediation is available by upgrading affected packages to version 0.10.1.

CVE-2018-21000 at a Glance

CVE Identifier CVE-2018-21000
GHSA Identifier GHSA-2v78-j59h-fmpf
Severity CRITICAL
CVSS v3.1 Base Score 9.8
CWE Classification CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer
Affected Product Safe transmute
Package Ecosystem crates.io
Published Date
Last Updated

Security Impact

CVSS: 9.8

The security impact metrics below are parsed directly from the CVSS v3.1 vector string (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H).

Attack Vector Network (AV:N)
Attack Complexity Low (AC:L)
Privileges Required None (PR:N)
User Interaction None (UI:N)
Scope Unchanged (S:U)
Confidentiality High (C:H)
Integrity High (I:H)
Availability High (A:H)

How to Fix CVE-2018-21000

To remediate this vulnerability, upgrade all affected Safe transmute dependencies to a patched release. Both direct and transitive dependencies should be checked, as frameworks or security libraries may pull in vulnerable versions transitively.

safe-transmute fixed: 0.10.1 
Upgrade safe-transmute to 0.10.1
Verify Direct and Transitive Dependencies

Run the following command in your project directory to verify that all resolved dependencies use the patched release: 

inspect dependencies for safe-transmute

How to Check if You Are Affected

To determine whether your application is affected by CVE-2018-21000, inspect your project dependencies for Safe transmute:

inspect dependencies for safe-transmute

Analyze the terminal output to locate any version of Safe transmute in your dependency tree. If any resolved version matches the vulnerable ranges listed in the table below (for example, versions earlier than 0.10.1), your application is affected.

Note: Verify declared build manifests and deployed runtime container environments.

Technical Details

Vulnerability Mechanism & Technical Analysis

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer, where the product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it reads from or writes to a memory location outside the buffer's intended boundary. this may result in read or write operations on unexpected memory locations that could be linked to other variables, data structures, or internal program data. In Safe transmute, software state validation or input boundaries are circumvented during processing. Review the official source advisory statement below for specific affected components, classes, and reproduction details.

Source Advisory Statement

Affected versions of this crate switched the length and capacity arguments in the Vec::from_raw_parts() constructor, which could lead to memory corruption or data leakage.

CVE-2018-21000 Affected Safe transmute Versions

1 component(s)
Fixed Versions:
0.10.1
Product / Package Ecosystem Affected Versions Fixed Version
safe-transmute
 crates.io
≥ 0.4.0
< 0.10.1
0.10.1

References

NVD — CVE-2018-21000 NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-21000
Safe transmute Source Repository REPOSITORY
https://github.com/nabijaczleweli/safe-transmute-rs/pull/36
Security Fix Commit FIX COMMIT
https://github.com/nabijaczleweli/safe-transmute-rs/commit/a134e06d740f9d7c287f74c0af2cd06206774364
Safe transmute Source Repository REPOSITORY
https://github.com/nabijaczleweli/safe-transmute-rs
rustsec.org/advisories/rustsec-... WEB
https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2018-0013.html

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2018-21000?
CVE-2018-21000 is a security vulnerability in Safe transmute involving Heap overflow or corruption in safe-transmute under CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer.
Which Safe transmute versions are affected?
Affected versions include releases prior to 0.10.1 across affected packages: safe-transmute.
What version fixes CVE-2018-21000?
Upgrading to 0.10.1 (or the latest patched release for your respective branch) resolves the vulnerability.
Is safe-transmute affected?
Yes, safe-transmute is affected in releases prior to 0.10.1. Upgrade your dependency to 0.10.1 or later.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2018-21000?
CVE-2018-21000 has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (CRITICAL) with vector string CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.
What CWE is associated with CVE-2018-21000?
CVE-2018-21000 is classified under CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer (The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it reads from or writes to a memory location outside the buffer's intended boundary. This may result in read or write operations on unexpected memory locations that could be linked to other variables, data structures, or internal program data.).
How can I check crates.io dependencies for CVE-2018-21000?
Run the dependency tree command: 'inspect dependencies for safe-transmute'. This command lists direct and transitive dependencies in your build configuration so you can verify if a vulnerable version is resolved.
Machine-readable OSV JSON OSV v1.5 Schema
Normalized schema output
View Raw JSON 
{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-2v78-j59h-fmpf",
  "modified" : "2023-06-13T21:04:31Z",
  "published" : "2021-08-25T20:43:23Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2018-21000" ],
  "summary" : "Heap overflow or corruption in safe-transmute",
  "details" : "Affected versions of this crate switched the length and capacity arguments in the Vec::from_raw_parts() constructor, which could lead to memory corruption or data leakage.",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "crates.io",
      "name" : "safe-transmute"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "0.4.0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "0.10.1"
      } ]
    } ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-21000"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/nabijaczleweli/safe-transmute-rs/pull/36"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/nabijaczleweli/safe-transmute-rs/commit/a134e06d740f9d7c287f74c0af2cd06206774364"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/nabijaczleweli/safe-transmute-rs"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2018-0013.html"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-119" ],
    "severity" : "CRITICAL",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2021-08-19T21:24:31Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : null
  }
}