CVE-2019-15543

Vulnerability

Overview

The slice-deque crate for Rust, prior to version 0.2.0, contains a critical memory corruption vulnerability in the SliceDeque::move_head_unchecked function. This bug arises from improper handling of memory allocation in certain cases, leading to corruption of the deque's internal buffer [1][2]. The issue was discovered during intensive testing where repeated pop_front operations under high load triggered memory corruption, evidenced by wildly incorrect element values [4].

Exploitation

Details

An attacker can exploit this vulnerability remotely without authentication or user interaction (CVSS 9.8, AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N) [2][3]. By crafting a sequence of operations that triggers the bug — for instance, repeatedly pushing and popping elements to exhaust and reorganize the deque — the attacker can corrupt memory in a controlled manner. The SliceDeque's direct use of virtual memory operations bypasses Rust's global allocator, making the corruption path specific to its custom memory management [1].

Impact

Successful exploitation results in memory corruption that can lead to a denial of service, data integrity loss, or potentially arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, as reflected in the CVSS score [2]. Since the slice-deque crate is used in performance-sensitive Rust applications, this risk extends to any software relying on the affected versions.

Mitigation

Users should upgrade to slice-deque version 0.2.0 or later, which contains the fix for this vulnerability [2]. No workarounds are documented; updating is the sole mitigation. The advisory is tracked as RUSTSEC-2019-0002 and the corresponding issue is detailed in the GitHub issue tracker [2][4].