CVE-2023-38546

Technical Description

This flaw allows an attacker to insert cookies at will into a running program

using libcurl, if the specific series of conditions are met.

libcurl performs transfers. In its API, an application creates "easy handles"

that are the individual handles for single transfers.

libcurl provides a function call that duplicates en easy handle called

[curl_easy_duphandle](https://curl.se/libcurl/c/curl_easy_duphandle.html).

If a transfer has cookies enabled when the handle is duplicated, the

cookie-enable state is also cloned - but without cloning the actual

cookies. If the source handle did not read any cookies from a specific file on

disk, the cloned version of the handle would instead store the file name as

`none` (using the four ASCII letters, no quotes).

Subsequent use of the cloned handle that does not explicitly set a source to

load cookies from would then inadvertently load cookies from a file named

`none` - if such a file exists and is readable in the current directory of the

program

Remediation

Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from haxx. Update libcurl to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.

Affected Products

References