Summary
Minder's GitHub Webhook Handler vulnerable to DoS from un-validated requests
Minder's HandleGithubWebhook is susceptible to a denial of service attack from an untrusted HTTP request. The vulnerability exists before the request has been validated, and as such the request is still untrusted at the point of failure. This allows an attacker with the ability to send requests to HandleGithubWebhook to crash the Minder controlplane and deny other users from using it.
One of the first things that HandleGithubWebhook does is to validate the payload signature. This is done by way of the internal helper validatePayloadSignature:
validatePayloadSignature generates a reader from the incoming request by way of the internal helper readerFromRequest:
To create a reader from the incoming request, readerFromRequest first reads the request body entirely into memory on line 368:
This is a vulnerability, since an HTTP request with a large body can exhaust the memory of the machine running Minder and cause the Go runtime to crash Minder.
Note that this occurs before Minder has validated the request, and as such, the request is still untrusted.
To test this out, we can use the existing TestHandleWebHookRepository unit test and modify the HTTP request body to be large.
To do that, change these lines:
... to these lines:
packageJson, err := json.Marshal(event)
require.NoError(t, err, "failed to marshal package event")
maliciousBody := strings.NewReader(strings.Repeat("1337", 1000000000))
maliciousBodyReader := io.MultiReader(maliciousBody, maliciousBody, maliciousBody, maliciousBody, maliciousBody)
_ = packageJson
client := &http.Client{}
req, err := http.NewRequest("POST", fmt.Sprintf("http://%s", addr), maliciousBodyReader)
require.NoError(t, err, "failed to create request")
Then run the unit test again. WARNING, SAVE ALL WORK BEFORE DOING THIS.
On my local machine, this causes the machine to freeze, and Go finally performs a sigkill:
signal: killed
FAIL github.com/stacklok/minder/internal/controlplane 30.759s
FAIL
Impact
Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service. Typical impact: denial of service.
CVE-2024-34084 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). 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 (0.0.48); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
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. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2024-34084? CVE-2024-34084 is a high-severity uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in github.com/stacklok/minder (go), affecting versions < 0.0.48. It is fixed in 0.0.48. Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service.
- How severe is CVE-2024-34084? CVE-2024-34084 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). 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.
- Which versions of github.com/stacklok/minder are affected by CVE-2024-34084? github.com/stacklok/minder (go) versions < 0.0.48 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2024-34084? Yes. CVE-2024-34084 is fixed in 0.0.48. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2024-34084 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2024-34084 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
- What actually determines whether CVE-2024-34084 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.
- How do I fix CVE-2024-34084? Upgrade
github.com/stacklok/minderto 0.0.48 or later.