CVE-2024-6038 in ChuanhuChatGPT
Summary
by MITRE • 06/27/2024
A Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability exists in the latest version of gaizhenbiao/chuanhuchatgpt. The vulnerability is located in the filter_history function within the utils.py module. This function takes a user-provided keyword and attempts to match it against chat history filenames using a regular expression search. Due to the lack of sanitization or validation of the keyword parameter, an attacker can inject a specially crafted regular expression, leading to a denial of service condition. This can cause severe degradation of service performance and potential system unavailability.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/30/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-6038 represents a critical Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) flaw within the gaizhenbiao/chuanhuchatgpt application. This security weakness resides in the filter_history function located within the utils.py module, where user-provided input directly influences regular expression processing. The vulnerability stems from inadequate input validation and sanitization mechanisms that fail to properly handle maliciously crafted regular expressions submitted by unauthorized users. When attackers exploit this weakness, they can craft specific input patterns that cause the regular expression engine to consume excessive computational resources through catastrophic backtracking, leading to significant performance degradation or complete system unavailability.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability manifests when the filter_history function processes user-supplied keywords without proper validation or sanitization before applying them to regular expression matching operations. This function accepts chat history filenames and attempts to match them against user-provided patterns, creating an attack surface where malicious input can be injected into the regular expression engine. The lack of input sanitization means that attackers can submit specially constructed regular expressions that trigger exponential backtracking behavior in the regex engine, causing the system to spend enormous amounts of processing time attempting to match the pattern. This behavior directly maps to CWE-400, which specifically addresses unchecked resource consumption, and represents a classic example of how unvalidated user input can be leveraged to create denial of service conditions.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple performance degradation to potentially catastrophic system availability issues. When exploited, the ReDoS condition can cause the application to become unresponsive or crash entirely, as the regular expression engine becomes overwhelmed by the malicious input patterns. This vulnerability affects the core functionality of the chat history filtering mechanism, potentially rendering the entire application unusable for legitimate users while attackers can continue to exploit the weakness. The attack surface is particularly concerning given that the vulnerability exists in a utility function that processes user input, meaning any interaction with the chat history filtering feature could be leveraged by malicious actors to disrupt service operations. Organizations relying on this application may experience significant downtime and service disruption, especially under sustained attack conditions where multiple malicious inputs are processed simultaneously.
Mitigation strategies for this vulnerability must focus on comprehensive input validation and sanitization of user-provided data before it reaches the regular expression processing layer. The most effective approach involves implementing strict input validation that rejects or sanitizes potentially dangerous regular expression patterns, including those containing nested quantifiers, alternations, or other constructs that can lead to catastrophic backtracking. Additionally, developers should consider implementing timeout mechanisms for regular expression operations to prevent indefinite processing, while also implementing rate limiting to reduce the impact of potential attacks. The solution should also incorporate proper error handling and logging to detect and respond to potential exploitation attempts. Organizations should also consider implementing the principle of least privilege and input escaping techniques to minimize the impact of any potential exploitation attempts. This vulnerability highlights the importance of implementing robust input validation and sanitization practices, particularly when dealing with user-provided data that will be processed through regular expression engines, and aligns with ATT&CK technique T1496 which covers resource exhaustion via service denial of service attacks.