CVE-2023-30551 Explained : Impact and Mitigation

Rekor's compressed archives can result in OOM conditions.

Understanding CVE-2023-30551

Rekor, an open-source software supply chain transparency log, has a vulnerability in versions prior to 1.1.1 that can crash due to out-of-memory conditions when reading archive metadata files.

What is CVE-2023-30551?

Rekor, before version 1.1.1, may crash due to OOM conditions caused by reading large archive metadata files without size verification. Parsing large files in APK or META-INF directories can trigger OOM crashes.

The Impact of CVE-2023-30551

The vulnerability can lead to denial of service (DoS) situations, potentially disrupting operations relying on Rekor's archive processing.

Technical Details of CVE-2023-30551

The vulnerability stems from inadequate resource allocation without limits or throttling, as per CWE-770.

Vulnerability Description

Rekor < 1.1.1 processing of large archive metadata files can exhaust memory resources, resulting in OOM crashes during verification of JAR or APK files.

Affected Systems and Versions

Vendor: sigstore
Product: rekor
Affected Versions: < 1.1.1

Exploitation Mechanism

Large files in the META-INF directory of JAR or the .SIGN/.PKGINFO files in APK can trigger OOM conditions when processed by Rekor < 1.1.1.

Mitigation and Prevention

Immediate patching to version 1.1.1 is recommended to mitigate the OOM vulnerability in Rekor.

Immediate Steps to Take

Upgrade Rekor to version 1.1.1 or higher to prevent OOM crashes when handling large archive metadata files.

Long-Term Security Practices

Regularly update software components to the latest versions to address known vulnerabilities and improve system security.

Patching and Updates

Refer to release v1.1.1 to access the patched version of Rekor addressing the OOM crash vulnerability.