Parameter injection in DB connection URIs leading to local file inclusion in WhoDB

Summary

WhoDB is an open source database management tool. In affected versions the application is vulnerable to parameter injection in database connection strings, which allows an attacker to read local files on the machine the application is running on. The application uses string concatenation to build database connection URIs which are then passed to corresponding libraries responsible for setting up the database connections. This string concatenation is done unsafely and without escaping or encoding the user input. This allows an user, in many cases, to inject arbitrary parameters into the URI string. These parameters can be potentially dangerous depending on the libraries used. One of these dangerous parameters is `allowAllFiles` in the library `github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql`. Should this be set to `true`, the library enables running the `LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE` query on any file on the host machine (in this case, the machine that WhoDB is running on). By injecting `&allowAllFiles=true` into the connection URI and connecting to any MySQL server (such as an attacker-controlled one), the attacker is able to read local files. This issue has been addressed in version 0.45.0 and all users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Timeline

1. Feb 6, 2025, 6:41 PM UTCCVE published
2. Feb 6, 2025, 7:24 PM UTCCISA SSVC assessment

   Exploitation: poc · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial

3. Feb 6, 2025, 7:25 PM UTCRecord last updated

Affected versions

• clidey whodb

  fixed in 0.45.0

• github.com/clidey/whodb/coreGo

  fixed in 0.0.0-20250127202645-8d67b767e005

References 2