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Comment by btown | Hacker News Reader

And specifically, although it is nowadays uncommon for Python scripts to be run the way old-school WSGI web services were, with a script being fired up for every request and mapping user-controlled query parameters to environment variables, this was at one time actually the motivating example for https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0333/ ! It's a common enough attack pattern that https://capec.mitre.org/data/definitions/77.html exists and specifically cautions applications against trusting environment variables. There are very few places in Python where upon importing a module, an environment variable is trusted and triggered; all of them should be seen as security holes.

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Surely this is only a security risk if antigravity is imported?

What cause would there be to import antigravity in a CGI service – or anything other than a terminal in which you could already execute arbitrary code?

I am struggling to understand, even with the proof of concept, how the situation could arise where an attacker could realistically exploit this, based largely on the uselessness of the antigravity module.

I left one window open, but what is to guarantee a burgler would use that window??

Absolutely, I agree now that I see it, and these seem like numerous innocent-seeming footguns just waiting for abuse.

Add the not-too-far-fetched-seeming assumption that it’s fine to let the Internet define your environment variables, and it’s a plausible exploit.

This is why, as another commenter points out, defense in depth is so important.

See the "Making Progress With PYTHONWARNINGS" section in the article posted - setting the environment variable PYTHONWARNINGS to a value mentioning the antigravity module causes it to be imported, even if there's no "import antigravity" statement in the actual source.

Not sure how I missed that – it was even in the proof of concept in the message I replied to. Thanks for the help.

There are multiple failings that don’t seem like a big deal taken in isolation:

- The PYTHONWARNINGS and whole Warning Filters system.

- The webbrowser module executing a given executable from an environment variable.

- The antigravity module running webbrowser.open() on import.

All of these sort of seem a bit like sacrificing good taste for convenience. But in combination, in a situation where you don’t control the environment variables, they do lead to arbitrary code execution.

In other words, it’s not all antigravity’s fault, but those side effects on import make this possible.

You're right about sacrificing good taste for convenience, but since this is an easter egg, it's sacrificing good taste for a laugh, and I think that pushes it over the precipe over into being a bad idea.

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