CVE-2021-41133

Sandbox bypass via recent VFS-manipulating syscalls

Published Oct 8, 2021 CVSS 3.1 · 8.8 High EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
Flatpak is a system for building, distributing, and running sandboxed desktop applications on Linux. In versions prior to 1.10.4 and 1.12.0, Flatpak apps with direct access to AF_UNIX sockets such as those used by Wayland, Pipewire or pipewire-pulse can trick portals and other host-OS services into treating the Flatpak app as though it was an ordinary, non-sandboxed host-OS process. They can do this by manipulating the VFS using recent mount-related syscalls that are not blocked by Flatpak's denylist seccomp filter, in order to substitute a crafted `/.flatpak-info` or make that file disappear entirely. Flatpak apps that act as clients for AF_UNIX sockets such as those used by Wayland, Pipewire or pipewire-pulse can escalate the privileges that the corresponding services will believe the Flatpak app has. Note that protocols that operate entirely over the D-Bus session bus (user bus), system bus or accessibility bus are not affected by this. This is due to the use of a proxy process `xdg-dbus-proxy`, whose VFS cannot be manipulated by the Flatpak app, when interacting with these buses. Patches exist for versions 1.10.4 and 1.12.0, and as of time of publication, a patch for version 1.8.2 is being planned. There are no workarounds aside from upgrading to a patched version.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Debian DSA Debian DSA DSA-4984-1 flatpak security update
EUVD EUVD EUVD-2021-28254 Flatpak is a system for building, distributing, and running sandboxed desktop applications on Linux. In versions prior to 1.10.4 and 1.12.0, Flatpak apps with direct access to AF_UNIX sockets such as those used by Wayland, Pipewire or pipewire-pulse can trick portals and other host-OS services into treating the Flatpak app as though it was an ordinary, non-sandboxed host-OS process. They can do this by manipulating the VFS using recent mount-related syscalls that are not blocked by Flatpak's denylist seccomp filter, in order to substitute a crafted `/.flatpak-info` or make that file disappear entirely. Flatpak apps that act as clients for AF_UNIX sockets such as those used by Wayland, Pipewire or pipewire-pulse can escalate the privileges that the corresponding services will believe the Flatpak app has. Note that protocols that operate entirely over the D-Bus session bus (user bus), system bus or accessibility bus are not affected by this. This is due to the use of a proxy process `xdg-dbus-proxy`, whose VFS cannot be manipulated by the Flatpak app, when interacting with these buses. Patches exist for versions 1.10.4 and 1.12.0, and as of time of publication, a patch for version 1.8.2 is being planned. There are no workarounds aside from upgrading to a patched version.
Ubuntu USN Ubuntu USN USN-5191-1 Flatpak vulnerability
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:flatpak:flatpak:1.10.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:flatpak:flatpak:1.11.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:a:flatpak:flatpak:1.8.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'total'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
GitHub_M
Published
Updated
Aug 4, 2024, 2:59 AM
Reserved
Sep 15, 2021, 12:00 AM
Status
Modified
Published
Oct 8, 2021, 2:15 PM
Modified
Jun 17, 2026, 4:07 AM
Severity
Important
Public date
Oct 8, 2021, 12:00 AM