Impact
This is a path traversal vulnerability on the Gradle dependency cache.
When Gradle writes a dependency into its dependency cache, it uses the dependency's coordinates to compute a file location. With specially crafted dependency coordinates, Gradle can be made to write files into an unintended location. The file may be written outside the dependency cache or over another file in the dependency cache.
This vulnerability could be used to poison the dependency cache or overwrite important files elsewhere on the filesystem where the Gradle process has write permissions.
Exploiting this vulnerability requires an attacker to have control over a dependency repository used by the Gradle build or have the ability to modify the build's configuration. It is unlikely that this would go unnoticed.
Patches
A fix has been released in Gradle 7.6.2 and 8.2 to protect against this vulnerability. Gradle will refuse to cache dependencies that have path traversal elements in their dependency coordinates.
It is recommended that users upgrade to a patched version.
Workarounds
If you are unable to upgrade to Gradle 7.6.2 or 8.2, dependency verification will make this vulnerability more difficult to exploit.
- When metadata verification is enabled, attackers will be required to either sign compromised dependencies with an already trusted key or to modify the dependency verification metadata.
- Tampered files in the dependency cache will be detected after being overwritten
- Builds that use unexpected artifacts will fail, whether the artifact is downloaded or loaded from cache
References
Impact
This is a path traversal vulnerability on the Gradle dependency cache.
When Gradle writes a dependency into its dependency cache, it uses the dependency's coordinates to compute a file location. With specially crafted dependency coordinates, Gradle can be made to write files into an unintended location. The file may be written outside the dependency cache or over another file in the dependency cache.
This vulnerability could be used to poison the dependency cache or overwrite important files elsewhere on the filesystem where the Gradle process has write permissions.
Exploiting this vulnerability requires an attacker to have control over a dependency repository used by the Gradle build or have the ability to modify the build's configuration. It is unlikely that this would go unnoticed.
Patches
A fix has been released in Gradle 7.6.2 and 8.2 to protect against this vulnerability. Gradle will refuse to cache dependencies that have path traversal elements in their dependency coordinates.
It is recommended that users upgrade to a patched version.
Workarounds
If you are unable to upgrade to Gradle 7.6.2 or 8.2, dependency verification will make this vulnerability more difficult to exploit.
References