January 10th 2022 Security Releases

Bryan English

(Update 10-Jan-2022) Security releases available

Updates are now available for the v17.x, v16.x, v14.x, and v12.x Node.js release lines for the following issues.

Improper handling of URI Subject Alternative Names (Medium)(CVE-2021-44531)

Accepting arbitrary Subject Alternative Name (SAN) types, unless a PKI is specifically defined to use a particular SAN type, can result in bypassing name-constrained intermediates. Node.js was accepting URI SAN types, which PKIs are often not defined to use. Additionally, when a protocol allows URI SANs, Node.js did not match the URI correctly.

Versions of Node.js with the fix for this disable the URI SAN type when checking a certificate against a hostname. This behavior can be reverted through the --security-revert command-line option.

More details will be available at CVE-2021-44531 after publication.

This vulnerability was reported by Google.

Impacts:

  • All versions of the 17.x, 16.x, 14.x, and 12.x releases lines.

Certificate Verification Bypass via String Injection (Medium)(CVE-2021-44532)

Node.js converts SANs (Subject Alternative Names) to a string format. It uses this string to check peer certificates against hostnames when validating connections. The string format was subject to an injection vulnerability when name constraints were used within a certificate chain, allowing the bypass of these name constraints.

Versions of Node.js with the fix for this escape SANs containing the problematic characters in order to prevent the injection. This behavior can be reverted through the --security-revert command-line option.

More details will be available at CVE-2021-44532 after publication.

This vulnerability was reported by Google.

Impacts:

  • All versions of the 17.x, 16.x, 14.x, and 12.x releases lines.

Incorrect handling of certificate subject and issuer fields (Medium)(CVE-2021-44533)

Node.js did not handle multi-value Relative Distinguished Names correctly. Attackers could craft certificate subjects containing a single-value Relative Distinguished Name that would be interpreted as a multi-value Relative Distinguished Name, for example, in order to inject a Common Name that would allow bypassing the certificate subject verification.

Affected versions of Node.js do not accept multi-value Relative Distinguished Names and are thus not vulnerable to such attacks themselves. However, third-party code that uses node's ambiguous presentation of certificate subjects may be vulnerable.

More details will be available at CVE-2021-44533 after publication.

This vulnerability was reported by Google.

Impacts:

  • All versions of the 17.x, 16.x, 14.x, and 12.x releases lines.

Prototype pollution via console.table properties (Low)(CVE-2022-21824)

Due to the formatting logic of the console.table() function it was not safe to allow user controlled input to be passed to the properties parameter while simultaneously passing a plain object with at least one property as the first parameter, which could be __proto__. The prototype pollution has very limited control, in that it only allows an empty string to be assigned to numerical keys of the object prototype.

Versions of Node.js with the fix for this use a null protoype for the object these properties are being assigned to.

More details will be available at CVE-2022-21824 after publication.

Thanks to Patrik Oldsberg (rugvip) for reporting this vulnerability.

Impacts:

  • All versions of the 17.x, 16.x, 14.x, and 12.x releases lines.

Downloads and release details


Summary

The Node.js project will release new versions of the 12.x, 14.x, 16.x, and 17.x releases lines on or shortly after Monday, January 10th, 2022 in order to address:

  • Three medium severity issues
  • One low severity issue

Impact

The 17.x release line of Node.js is vulnerable to three medium severity issues and one low severity issue.

The 16.x release line of Node.js is vulnerable to three medium severity issues and one low severity issue.

The 14.x release line of Node.js is vulnerable to three medium severity issues and one low severity issue.

The 12.x release line of Node.js is vulnerable to three medium severity issues and one low severity issue.

Release timing

Releases will be available on, or shortly after, Monday, January 10th, 2022.

Contact and future updates

The current Node.js security policy can be found at https://github.com/nodejs/node/security/policy. Please follow the process outlined in https://github.com/nodejs/node/security/policy if you wish to report a vulnerability in Node.js.

Subscribe to the low-volume announcement-only nodejs-sec mailing list at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/nodejs-sec to stay up to date on security vulnerabilities and security-related releases of Node.js and the projects maintained in the nodejs GitHub organization.