CVE-2021-39184
Published: 12 October 2021
Summary
CVE-2021-39184 is a medium-severity Exposure of Resource to Wrong Sphere (CWE-668) vulnerability in Electronjs Electron. Its CVSS base score is 6.8 (Medium).
Operationally, ranked in the top 41.0% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2021-2232
Vulnerability details
Electron is a framework for writing cross-platform desktop applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. A vulnerability in versions prior to 11.5.0, 12.1.0, and 13.3.0 allows a sandboxed renderer to request a "thumbnail" image of an arbitrary file on the user's…
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system. The thumbnail can potentially include significant parts of the original file, including textual data in many cases. Versions 15.0.0-alpha.10, 14.0.0, 13.3.0, 12.1.0, and 11.5.0 all contain a fix for the vulnerability. Two workarounds aside from upgrading are available. One may make the vulnerability significantly more difficult for an attacker to exploit by enabling `contextIsolation` in one's app. One may also disable the functionality of the `createThumbnailFromPath` API if one does not need it.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Mandates authorization checks before permitting access or data processing via external systems.
The control provides a mechanism for authorized users to determine authorization matches, preventing sharing without proper authorization verification.
Restricts information flows to ensure resources are not exposed to incorrect or unauthorized spheres.
Requiring explicit authorization for each internal connection prevents missing authorization.
Asset tracking reveals resources that have inadvertently entered an unintended security sphere, permitting corrective isolation.
Enforces separation so resources are not placed in a public sphere without explicit protection.
The control ensures resources are not exposed outside their intended security domain by filtering transfers at the domain boundary.
Internal resources are kept in separate network spheres from externally accessible components.