CVE-2021-41133

NameCVE-2021-41133
DescriptionFlatpak is a system for building, distributing, and running sandboxed desktop applications on Linux. In versions prior to 1.10.4 and 1.12.0, Flatpak apps with direct access to AF_UNIX sockets such as those used by Wayland, Pipewire or pipewire-pulse can trick portals and other host-OS services into treating the Flatpak app as though it was an ordinary, non-sandboxed host-OS process. They can do this by manipulating the VFS using recent mount-related syscalls that are not blocked by Flatpak's denylist seccomp filter, in order to substitute a crafted `/.flatpak-info` or make that file disappear entirely. Flatpak apps that act as clients for AF_UNIX sockets such as those used by Wayland, Pipewire or pipewire-pulse can escalate the privileges that the corresponding services will believe the Flatpak app has. Note that protocols that operate entirely over the D-Bus session bus (user bus), system bus or accessibility bus are not affected by this. This is due to the use of a proxy process `xdg-dbus-proxy`, whose VFS cannot be manipulated by the Flatpak app, when interacting with these buses. Patches exist for versions 1.10.4 and 1.12.0, and as of time of publication, a patch for version 1.8.2 is being planned. There are no workarounds aside from upgrading to a patched version.
SourceCVE (at NVD; CERT, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)
ReferencesDSA-4984-1
Debian Bugs995935

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source PackageReleaseVersionStatus
flatpak (PTS)stretch0.8.9-0+deb9u3vulnerable
stretch (security), stretch (lts)0.8.9-0+deb9u2vulnerable
buster (security), buster, buster (lts)1.2.5-0+deb10u4vulnerable
bullseye (security), bullseye1.10.8-0+deb11u2fixed
bookworm (security), bookworm1.14.10-1~deb12u1fixed
sid, trixie1.14.10-1fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

PackageTypeReleaseFixed VersionUrgencyOriginDebian Bugs
flatpaksourcebullseye1.10.5-0+deb11u1DSA-4984-1
flatpaksource(unstable)1.12.1-1995935

Notes

[buster] - flatpak <ignored> (Not exploitable with Debian buster kernel, intrusive to backport; requires updated libseccomp)
[stretch] - flatpak <ignored> (Difficult to exploit)
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/security/advisories/GHSA-67h7-w3jq-vh4q
Sourcewise fixed in 1.12.0-1 already, but 1.12.1-1 adds stricter dependency
to libseccomp 2.5.2 so that CVE-2021-41133 is fully prevented.
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/e26ac7586c392b5eb35ff4609fe232c52523b2cf
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/89ae9fe74c6d445bb1b3a40e568d77cf5de47e48
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/26b12484eb8a6219b9e7aa287b298a894b2f34ca
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/a10f52a7565c549612c92b8e736a6698a53db330
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/9766ee05b1425db397d2cf23afd24c7f6146a69f
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/4c34815784e9ffda5733225c7d95824f96375e36
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/1330662f33a55e88bfe18e76de28b7922d91a999
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/462fca2c666e0cd2b60d6d2593a7216a83047aaf
Regression followups:
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/d419fa67038370e4f4c3ce8c3b5f672d4876cfc8
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/3fc8c672676ae016f8e7cc90481b2feecbad9861

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