CVE-2022-39382

Technical Description

The problem comes from esbuild defaulting NODE_ENV to "development" when a platform configuration is undefined.
You can read about why esbuild has that behaviour in their documentation, but the result for Keystone users is that user Typescript was compiled, and had inlined NODE_ENV to the constant "development".

Your application's dependencies, as found in node_modules (including @keystone-6/core), are typically not compiled as part of this process, and thus should be unaffected. Therefore any libraries that used NODE_ENV to trigger particular behaviours (optimisations, security or otherwise) should still respect your environment's NODE_ENV.
We have tested this assumption by verifying that NODE_ENV=production yarn keystone start still uses secure cookies when using statelessSessions.

Thereby, the severity of this vulnerability is dependent on what functionality users conditionally triggered, in their own code, depending on the expectation that NODE_ENV would be correctly configured in their application. In accordance with Common Vulnerability Scoring System 2.3.3. Assume Vulnerable Configurations, this security advisory assumes vulnerable configurations and is thus marked as critical, but you should evaluate the true security impact for your application to determine a relevant score.

Workarounds

If you cannot upgrade your @keystone-6/core version for any reason, your best alternative is to remove any code that uses NODE_ENV in a way that may reasonably impact your application security.

References

• https://esbuild.github.io/api/#platform
• https://github.com/keystonejs/keystone/pull/8031
• https://github.com/keystonejs/keystone/pull/8063

For more information

Thanks to Austin Burdine for reporting this problem as a potential security vulnerability.

If you have any questions around this security advisory, please don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected], or open an issue on GitHub.

If you have a security flaw to report for any software in this repository, please see our SECURITY policy.

@keystone-6/[email protected] || 3.0.1 users that use NODE_ENV in their own code (not dependencies) to trigger security-sensitive functionality in a production build are vulnerable to NODE_ENV being inlined to "development" for user code.

If your dependencies use NODE_ENV to trigger particular behaviours (optimisations, security or otherwise), they should still respect your environment's configured NODE_ENV variable and thereby be unaffected.

If you do not use NODE_ENV in your own code to trigger security-sensitive functionality, you are not impacted by this vulnerability.
An example of code that would be affected, might be the following:

if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production') {
  // this code would unintentionally run in your production builds
}

CVE-2022-39382 has a CVSS score of 9.8 (Critical). The vector is network-reachable, no privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (3.0.2); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.

Kodem intelligence

This vulnerability has been fixed in @keystone-6/[email protected], thanks to @mmachatschek in https://github.com/keystonejs/keystone/pull/8031/.
We have added regression tests for this vulnerability in https://github.com/keystonejs/keystone/pull/8063.

1. What is CVE-2022-39382? CVE-2022-39382 is a critical-severity security vulnerability in @keystone-6/core (npm), affecting versions >= 3.0.0, < 3.0.2. It is fixed in 3.0.2.
2. How severe is CVE-2022-39382? CVE-2022-39382 has a CVSS score of 9.8 (Critical). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
3. Which versions of @keystone-6/core are affected by CVE-2022-39382? @keystone-6/core (npm) versions >= 3.0.0, < 3.0.2 is affected.
4. Is there a fix for CVE-2022-39382? Yes. CVE-2022-39382 is fixed in 3.0.2. Upgrade to this version or later.
5. Is CVE-2022-39382 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2022-39382 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
6. What actually determines whether CVE-2022-39382 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
7. How do I fix CVE-2022-39382? Upgrade @keystone-6/core to 3.0.2 or later.

Other vulnerabilities in @keystone-6/core