Flatpak sandbox escape via spawn portal
Description
Flatpak is a system for building, distributing, and running sandboxed desktop applications on Linux. A bug was discovered in the flatpak-portal service that can allow sandboxed applications to execute arbitrary code on the host system (a sandbox escape). This sandbox-escape bug is present in versions from 0.11.4 and before fixed versions 1.8.5 and 1.10.0. The Flatpak portal D-Bus service (flatpak-portal, also known by its D-Bus service name org.freedesktop.portal.Flatpak) allows apps in a Flatpak sandbox to launch their own subprocesses in a new sandbox instance, either with the same security settings as the caller or with more restrictive security settings. For example, this is used in Flatpak-packaged web browsers such as Chromium to launch subprocesses that will process untrusted web content, and give those subprocesses a more restrictive sandbox than the browser itself. In vulnerable versions, the Flatpak portal service passes caller-specified environment variables to non-sandboxed processes on the host system, and in particular to the flatpak run command that is used to launch the new sandbox instance. A malicious or compromised Flatpak app could set environment variables that are trusted by the flatpak run command, and use them to execute arbitrary code that is not in a sandbox. As a workaround, this vulnerability can be mitigated by preventing the flatpak-portal service from starting, but that mitigation will prevent many Flatpak apps from working correctly. This is fixed in versions 1.8.5 and 1.10.0.
AI Insight
LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.
Affected products
18- osv-coords16 versionspkg:rpm/opensuse/flatpak&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2015.2pkg:rpm/opensuse/flatpak&distro=openSUSE%20Tumbleweedpkg:rpm/opensuse/libostree&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2015.2pkg:rpm/opensuse/xdg-desktop-portal&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2015.2pkg:rpm/opensuse/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2015.2pkg:rpm/suse/flatpak&distro=SUSE%20Enterprise%20Storage%206pkg:rpm/suse/flatpak&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20High%20Performance%20Computing%2015%20SP1-ESPOSpkg:rpm/suse/flatpak&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20High%20Performance%20Computing%2015%20SP1-LTSSpkg:rpm/suse/flatpak&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Module%20for%20Desktop%20Applications%2015%20SP2pkg:rpm/suse/flatpak&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%2015%20SP1-BCLpkg:rpm/suse/flatpak&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%2015%20SP1-LTSSpkg:rpm/suse/flatpak&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%20for%20SAP%20Applications%2015%20SP1pkg:rpm/suse/libostree&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Module%20for%20Basesystem%2015%20SP2pkg:rpm/suse/libostree&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Module%20for%20Desktop%20Applications%2015%20SP2pkg:rpm/suse/xdg-desktop-portal&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Module%20for%20Desktop%20Applications%2015%20SP2pkg:rpm/suse/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Module%20for%20Desktop%20Applications%2015%20SP2
< 1.10.2-lp152.3.6.1+ 15 more
- (no CPE)range: < 1.10.2-lp152.3.6.1
- (no CPE)range: < 1.11.3-1.2
- (no CPE)range: < 2020.8-lp152.2.3.1
- (no CPE)range: < 1.8.0-lp152.4.3.1
- (no CPE)range: < 1.8.0-lp152.2.3.1
- (no CPE)range: < 1.2.3-150100.4.5.2
- (no CPE)range: < 1.2.3-150100.4.5.2
- (no CPE)range: < 1.2.3-150100.4.5.2
- (no CPE)range: < 1.10.2-4.6.1
- (no CPE)range: < 1.2.3-150100.4.5.2
- (no CPE)range: < 1.2.3-150100.4.5.2
- (no CPE)range: < 1.2.3-150100.4.5.2
- (no CPE)range: < 2020.8-3.3.2
- (no CPE)range: < 2020.8-3.3.2
- (no CPE)range: < 1.8.0-5.3.2
- (no CPE)range: < 1.8.0-3.3.1
Patches
Vulnerability mechanics
References
8- security.gentoo.org/glsa/202101-21mitrevendor-advisoryx_refsource_GENTOO
- www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4830mitrevendor-advisoryx_refsource_DEBIAN
- github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/6d1773d2a54dde9b099043f07a2094a4f1c2f486mitrex_refsource_MISC
- github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/6e5ae7a109cdfa9735ea7ccbd8cb79f9e8d3ae8bmitrex_refsource_MISC
- github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/aeb6a7ab0abaac4a8f4ad98b3df476d9de6b8bd4mitrex_refsource_MISC
- github.com/flatpak/flatpak/commit/cc1401043c075268ecc652eac557ef8076b5eabamitrex_refsource_MISC
- github.com/flatpak/flatpak/releases/tag/1.8.5mitrex_refsource_MISC
- github.com/flatpak/flatpak/security/advisories/GHSA-4ppf-fxf6-vxg2mitrex_refsource_CONFIRM
News mentions
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