CVE-2024-0818

Root

Cause

The vulnerability resides in the download function in PaddlePaddle's source code. Prior to version 2.6, the module_name and save_name parameters were not sanitized, allowing path traversal sequences like ../. An attacker could control these parameters to write files outside the intended directory, leading to arbitrary file overwrite [2][3].

Exploitation

Exploitation requires the attacker to supply a malicious module_name or save_name value containing path traversal components. No authentication is needed if the function is exposed to user input, which is common in machine learning workflows where users can specify model download paths. The attack surface is broad as PaddlePaddle is a widely used deep learning framework [1].

Impact

Successful exploitation allows an attacker to overwrite arbitrary files on the system, such as configuration files, libraries, or even system binaries. This can lead to remote code execution, data corruption, or persistent compromise of the affected environment. The vulnerability is rated High severity with a CVSS score of 7.5 [2].

Mitigation

The fix was released in PaddlePaddle version 2.6. The commit introduces regex validation for both module_name and save_name to reject any strings that contain path traversal indicators or unsafe characters [3]. Users are strongly advised to update to the latest version. No workaround is available for unpatched versions.