high
8.8
CWE
732 379
Advisory Published
CVE Published
Updated

CVE-2023-49797: Local Privilege Escalation in pyinstaller on Windows

First published: Sat Dec 09 2023(Updated: )

### Impact A PyInstaller built application, elevated as a privileged process, may be tricked by an unprivileged attacker into deleting files the unprivileged user does not otherwise have access to. A user is affected if **all** the following are satisfied: * The user runs an application containing either `matplotlib` or `win32com`. * The application is ran as administrator (or at least a user with higher privileges than the attacker). * The user's temporary directory is not locked to that specific user (most likely due to `TMP`/`TEMP` environment variables pointing to an unprotected, arbitrary, non default location). * Either: - The attacker is able to very carefully time the replacement of a temporary file with a symlink. This switch must occur exactly between [`shutil.rmtree()`'s builtin symlink check](https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/0fb18b02c8ad56299d6a2910be0bab8ad601ef24/Lib/shutil.py#L623) and the deletion itself - The application was built with Python 3.7.x or earlier which has no protection against Directory Junctions links ### Patches The vulnerability has been addressed in https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/pull/7827 which corresponds to `pyinstaller >= 5.13.1` ### Workarounds _Is there a way for users to fix or remediate the vulnerability without upgrading?_ No workaround, although the attack complexity becomes much higher if the application is built with Python >= 3.8.0.

Credit: security-advisories@github.com

Affected SoftwareAffected VersionHow to fix
pip/pyinstaller<5.13.1
5.13.1
App Installer<5.13.1

Remedy

https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/pull/7827

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Reference Links

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What is the vulnerability ID for this local privilege escalation vulnerability in pyinstaller on Windows?

    The vulnerability ID for this local privilege escalation vulnerability in pyinstaller on Windows is CVE-2023-49797.

  • What is the impact of this vulnerability?

    A PyInstaller built application, elevated as a privileged process, may be tricked by an unprivileged attacker into deleting files the unprivileged user does not otherwise have access to.

  • Who is affected by this vulnerability?

    A user is affected if they run an application containing PyInstaller on Windows.

  • How can I fix this vulnerability?

    To fix this vulnerability, update to PyInstaller version 5.13.1 using pip.

  • Where can I find more information about this vulnerability?

    You can find more information about this vulnerability in the following references: 1. [GitHub Advisory](https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/security/advisories/GHSA-9w2p-rh8c-v9g5) 2. [GitHub Advisory](https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-9w2p-rh8c-v9g5) 3. [GitHub Pull Request](https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/pull/7827)

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