Disputed, Not Rejected
daniel.haxx.se
daniel.haxx.se
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-45868
Total waste of everybody's time. You have to start h2 as server, instead of as dependency. You then have to start it with a command line parameter with a password, instead of specifying it in a config file. Both actions scream debug-configuration. If you do this, then... the password is readable on the command line.
That's the whole vulnerability. Analogy: if you leave a key on the table, people inside the same house can take it, and that's a vulnerability for the door.
So now h2 is 'vulnerable', every application needs to upgrade the dependency, and everybody needs to upgrade the application. What a total waste of time.
But in no way is that high - CVE ratings have turned to useless junk quite rapidly, probably sometime around when it became monetizable.
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-1597
Postgres drivers are now all highly vulnerable and blocked in our pipelines because of overeager security, level 10 means that we can't get waivers for it either.
But you can't exploit because no one uses PreferQueryMode=SIMPLE.
I find it concerning that software projects have to become CNAs to at least alleviate the harm of bogus CVEs.
There surely is some sort of CVE peer review? This should be possible for indefinitely long time after registering a CVE, because humans make mistakes.
So it shouldn't be needed to shy away from marking CVEs as invalid / rejected retroactively if appropriate.
It is understandable to err on the side of caution with vulnerability reports, but since reporting vulnerabilites has become an object of prestige, it seems needed to ramp up the scrutiny.
Just one quibble: the reporter was anonymous, so they aren't doing it for prestige. Perhaps it's griefing?
Reading the text, it also seems hard for MITRE to set general rules for when undefined memory access is a vulnerability.
Here it is not exploitable because it is only in a debug build and because the accessed memory is out-of-bounds in the intended context, but provably always within the memory bounds that are readable by curl, if I understand correctly.
For a case like this, it is easy to imagine this being one or two steps away from an actual vulnerability without having any actual security impact as-is.
So, not a vulnerability.
But requires explanation on why it isn't one.
That doesn't tell the whole story in C code, though. Out-of-bounds access is UB, thus the whole branch could be assumed to be never taken and optimized out by an enterprising compiler. In this case it will only cause missing characters in console output, but "will at worst cause a crash" is not entirely true.
I’ve reported (and fixed) a number of security issues over the years. Sometimes I get them CVE numbers. I’ve never believed that MITRE or NVD added the slightest bit of value in their analyses.
The whole industry should recognize that CVEs are just a number. They are not, in and of themselves, worthy of entries on resumes, use in academic analyses, or much else. They simply identify an issue that may or may not be a security issue. There is an entire industry (of distros, etc) that triage issues and maybe deploy fixes, and for better or for worse that industry often requires a CVE number for its internal tracking.
So assigning a CVE number in general seems about as meaningful as assigning any other string. If I say “FOOBAR-12345: I don’t like how ‘curl’ is spelled”, then that means about what it sounds like, that is, not much.
Assuming the curl dude actually makes some money selling services to people who have to do that reporting, he now has to not only show that the "high" CVE is fixed in the latest release, but go and back port a fix to all the versions that are being "maintained" for these customers who have to fill out reports about CVEs.
Even if all you have to do is respond to each with a "here's why this is bullshit", it still takes some time, time that could be better spent posting on HN.
Exactly. Last year, multiple CVEs were opened against node.js. They only impacted an experimental feature introduced in node 20, but NVD listed all versions of node as vulnerable (in contradiction with NVD's own summaries!). Many security tools treat NVD's word as gospel and refused to issue a correction in their findings, even though the erroneous reports were obvious and verifiable. It took multiple weeks for NVD to fix the entries despite receiving no doubt many emails about it.
Flaws in the CVE process waste tons of time, especially (it seems) at large orgs.
I think the people using the CVE database as some kind of official source of actual security issues, as opposed to reported potential issues, is the problem.
The database isn't really much use unless it's pretty accurate, as few of us have the ability to evaluate correctness.
In this case, where there's an anonymous report, and a clear, near-elementary level explanation of how the code in question cannot be a security violation and has since been removed, the CVE should just be deleted, to save bandwidth for everyone.
I sure don’t. But who does? Who gets paid by whom to make this all work? Apparently whatever is happening now ain’t it.
I'm glad the `curl` organization is a CMA now, though, maybe that will mitigate the issue.
Many were questioning why he chose that particular hill to die on and I think article answers that question. It's a general problem and SOME CVE related hill needs to be chosen.