dfinity ic-stable-structures up to 0.6.3 BTreeMap memory leak

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in dfinity ic-stable-structures up to 0.6.3 and classified as problematic. The affected element is an unknown function of the component BTreeMap Handler. Performing a manipulation results in memory leak. This vulnerability is cataloged as CVE-2024-4435. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. There is no exploit available. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, was found in dfinity ic-stable-structures up to 0.6.3. This affects an unknown part of the component BTreeMap Handler. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory leak vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-401. The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory. This is going to have an impact on availability. The summary by CVE is:

When storing unbounded types in a BTreeMap, a node is represented as a linked list of "memory chunks". It was discovered recently that when we deallocate a node, in some cases only the first memory chunk is deallocated, and the rest of the memory chunks remain (incorrectly) allocated, causing a memory leak. In the worst case, depending on how a canister uses the BTreeMap, an adversary could interact with the canister through its API and trigger interactions with the map that keep consuming memory due to the memory leak. This could potentially lead to using an excessive amount of memory, or even running out of memory. This issue has been fixed in #212 https://github.com/dfinity/stable-structures/pull/212  by changing the logic for deallocating nodes to ensure that all of a node's memory chunks are deallocated and users are asked to upgrade to version 0.6.4.. Tests have been added to prevent regressions of this nature moving forward. Note: Users of stable-structure < 0.6.0 are not affected. Users who are not storing unbounded types in BTreeMap are not affected and do not need to upgrade. Otherwise, an upgrade to version 0.6.4 is necessary.

It is possible to read the advisory at github.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2024-4435 since 05/02/2024. The exploitability is told to be difficult. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. No form of authentication is needed for exploitation. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1499 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

Upgrading to version 0.6.4 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying a patch is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at github.com. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

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Productinfo

Vendor

• dfinity

Name

• ic-stable-structures

Version

• 0.6.0
• 0.6.1
• 0.6.2
• 0.6.3

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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