Vulnerabilities in pkg:golang/tailscale.com
PACKAGECVE-2023-28436 is a MODERATE (CVSS 5.7) non-interactive tailscale ssh sessions on vulnerability (CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management) affecting Tailscale.com libraries in the Go ecosystem. The issue involves non-interactive tailscale ssh sessions on freebsd may use the effective group id of the tailscaled process. Remediation is available by upgrading affected packages to version 1.38.2.
pkg:golang/tailscale.com
Vulnerability advisories affecting package pkg:golang/tailscale.com. Select an advisory below to view technical details or fixes.
| Advisory ID | CVE / NVD | Severity | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| GHSA-vfgq-g5x8-g595 | CVE-2023-28436 | MODERATE | Non-interactive Tailscale SSH sessions on FreeBSD may use the effective group ID of the tailscaled process |
| GHSA-vqp6-rc3h-83cp | CVE-2022-41924 | CRITICAL | Tailscale Windows daemon is vulnerable to RCE via CSRF |
CVE-2023-28436 at a Glance
Security Impact
CVSS: 5.7
The security impact metrics below are parsed directly from the CVSS v3.1 vector string (CVSS:3.0/AV:A/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N).
How to Fix CVE-2023-28436
To remediate this vulnerability, upgrade all affected Tailscale.com dependencies to a patched release. Both direct and transitive dependencies should be checked, as frameworks or security libraries may pull in vulnerable versions transitively.
Upgrade tailscale.com to 1.38.2
Run the following command in your project directory to verify that all resolved dependencies use the patched release:
inspect dependencies for tailscale.com
How to Check if You Are Affected
To determine whether your application is affected by CVE-2023-28436, inspect your project dependencies for Tailscale.com:
inspect dependencies for tailscale.com
Analyze the terminal output to locate any version of Tailscale.com in your dependency tree. If any resolved version matches the vulnerable ranges listed in the table below (for example, versions earlier than 1.38.2), 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-269: Improper Privilege Management, where the product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor. In Tailscale.com, 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
CVE-2023-28436 Affected Tailscale.com Versions
1 component(s)| Product / Package | Ecosystem | Affected Versions | Fixed Version |
|---|---|---|---|
|
tailscale.com
|
Go |
≥ 1.34.0
< 1.38.2
|
1.38.2
|
References
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2023-28436?
Which Tailscale.com versions are affected?
What version fixes CVE-2023-28436?
Is tailscale.com affected?
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2023-28436?
What CWE is associated with CVE-2023-28436?
How can I check Go dependencies for CVE-2023-28436?
Machine-readable OSV JSON
OSV v1.5 Schema
{
"schema_version" : "1.4.0",
"id" : "GHSA-vfgq-g5x8-g595",
"modified" : "2023-03-23T22:09:19Z",
"published" : "2023-03-23T19:58:23Z",
"aliases" : [ "CVE-2023-28436" ],
"summary" : "Non-interactive Tailscale SSH sessions on FreeBSD may use the effective group ID of the tailscaled process",
"details" : "A vulnerability identified in the implementation of Tailscale SSH in FreeBSD allowed commands to be run with a higher privilege group ID than that specified by Tailscale SSH access rules.\n\n**Affected platforms**: FreeBSD\n\n**Patched Tailscale client versions**: v1.38.2 or later\n\n### What happened?\nA difference in the behavior of the FreeBSD `setgroups` system call from POSIX meant that the Tailscale client running on a FreeBSD-based operating system did not appropriately restrict groups on the host when using Tailscale SSH. When accessing a FreeBSD host over Tailscale SSH, the egid of the tailscaled process was used instead of that of the user specified in Tailscale SSH access rules.\n\n### Who is affected?\n9 tailnets with 22 FreeBSD nodes running Tailscale SSH since Tailscale v1.34 (released on 2022-12-04) may have had Tailscale SSH sessions with a higher privilege group ID than that specified in Tailscale SSH access rules.\n\nWe have notified the affected organizations where we have [security contacts](https://tailscale.com/kb/1224/contact-preferences/#setting-the-security-issues-email).\n\n### What is the impact?\nTailscale SSH commands may have been run with a higher privilege group ID than that specified in Tailscale SSH access rules if they met all of the following criteria:\n* The destination node was a FreeBSD device with Tailscale SSH enabled;\n* Tailscale SSH access rules permitted access for non-root users; and\n* A non-interactive SSH session was used.\n\n### What do I need to do?\nIf you are running Tailscale on FreeBSD, upgrade to v1.38.2 or later to remediate the issue. Admins of a tailnet can view [FreeBSD nodes with unpatched versions](https://login.tailscale.com/admin/machines?q=version%3A%3C1.38.2+freebsd) in the admin console.\n\nTo update the local ports tree in advance of what's available upstream, you can:\n\n1. `cd /usr/ports/security/tailscale`\n2. edit the Makefile to set `PORTVERSION` to `1.38.2`\n3. `make makesum`\n4. `make install`\n\nTailscale SSH on other platforms is not affected.\n\n### Credits\nWe would like to thank [Ryan Belgrave](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rbelgrave/) for reporting this issue.\n\n### References\n* [TS-2023-003](https://tailscale.com/security-bulletins/#ts-2023-003)\n\n\n",
"severity" : [ {
"type" : "CVSS_V3",
"score" : "CVSS:3.0/AV:A/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N"
} ],
"affected" : [ {
"package" : {
"ecosystem" : "Go",
"name" : "tailscale.com"
},
"ranges" : [ {
"type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
"events" : [ {
"introduced" : "1.34.0"
}, {
"fixed" : "1.38.2"
} ]
} ]
} ],
"references" : [ {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/security/advisories/GHSA-vfgq-g5x8-g595"
}, {
"type" : "ADVISORY",
"url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-28436"
}, {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/commit/d00c046b723dff6e3775d7d35f891403ac21a47d"
}, {
"type" : "PACKAGE",
"url" : "https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale"
}, {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/releases/tag/v1.38.2"
}, {
"type" : "WEB",
"url" : "https://tailscale.com/security-bulletins/#ts-2023-003"
} ],
"database_specific" : {
"cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-269" ],
"severity" : "MODERATE",
"github_reviewed" : true,
"github_reviewed_at" : "2023-03-23T19:58:23Z",
"nvd_published_at" : "2023-03-23T20:15:00Z"
}
}