freedomofpress securedrop-client up to 0.14.0 Source/Journalist Interface autostart safe_move path traversal

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in freedomofpress securedrop-client up to 0.14.0. It has been rated as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function safe_move of the file /home/user/.config/autostart/ of the component Source/Journalist Interface. The manipulation leads to path traversal. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2025-24888. The attack is possible to be carried out remotely. No exploit exists. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in freedomofpress securedrop-client up to 0.14.0. It has been rated as critical. This issue affects the function safe_move of the file /home/user/.config/autostart/ of the component Source/Journalist Interface. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a path traversal vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-22. The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

The SecureDrop Client is a desktop application for journalists to communicate with sources and work with submissions on the SecureDrop Workstation. Prior to version 0.14.1, a malicious SecureDrop Server could obtain code execution on the SecureDrop Client virtual machine (`sd-app`). SecureDrop Server itself has multiple layers of built-in hardening, and is a dedicated physical machine exposed on the internet only via Tor hidden services for the Source and Journalist interfaces, and optionally via remote SSH access over another Tor hidden service. A newsroom's SecureDrop Workstation communicates only with its own dedicated SecureDrop Server. The SecureDrop Client runs in a dedicated Qubes virtual machine, named `sd-app`, as part of the SecureDrop Workstation. The private OpenPGP key used to decrypt submissions and replies is stored in a separate virtual machine and never accessed directly. The vulnerability lies in the code responsible for downloading replies. The filename of the reply is obtained from the `Content-Disposition` HTTP header and used to write the encrypted reply on disk. Note that filenames are generated and sanitized server-side, and files are downloaded in an encrypted format, so a remote attacker who has not achieved server compromise, such as one posing as a source, could not craft the HTTP response necessary for this attack. While the filename is later checked to guard against path traversal before being moved into the Client’s data storage directory, the file has already been written to a potentially arbitrary location. In this case, `safe_move()` would detect the path traversal and fail, leaving the original downloaded file in the attacker-chosen directory. Code execution can be gained by writing an autostart file in `/home/user/.config/autostart/`. Version 0.14.1 fixes the issue. As of time of publication, there is no known evidence of exploitation in the wild. This attack requires a previously compromised SecureDrop Server.

The advisory is shared at github.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2025-24888 since 01/27/2025. The exploitation is known to be difficult. The attack may be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is needed for a successful exploitation. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1006 for this issue.

Upgrading to version 0.14.1 eliminates this vulnerability. The upgrade is hosted for download at github.com. Applying the patch 120bac14649db0bcf5f24f2eb82731c76843b1ba 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

• freedomofpress

Name

• securedrop-client

Version

• 0.1
• 0.2
• 0.3
• 0.4
• 0.5
• 0.6
• 0.7
• 0.8
• 0.9
• 0.10
• 0.11
• 0.12
• 0.13
• 0.14.0

License

• open-source

Website

• Product: https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop-client/

CPE 2.3info

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