CVE-2020-25575
📋 TL;DR
This vulnerability in the Rust failure crate (versions through 0.1.5) involves a type confusion flaw when downcasting, which could lead to memory corruption or undefined behavior. It affects applications using this unsupported error handling library, potentially allowing attackers to execute arbitrary code or crash applications. Only products using this no-longer-maintained crate are vulnerable.
💻 Affected Systems
- failure crate for Rust
📦 What is this software?
Failure by Failure Project
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Remote code execution leading to complete system compromise, data theft, or service disruption.
Likely Case
Application crashes (denial of service) or memory corruption leading to unpredictable behavior.
If Mitigated
Limited impact if applications don't use vulnerable downcasting features or have proper sandboxing.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires specific conditions where vulnerable downcasting is used. No public exploits have been documented.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: N/A
Vendor Advisory: https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2020-0036.html
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Migrate from failure crate to alternative error handling libraries like anyhow or thiserror. 2. Update Cargo.toml to remove failure dependency. 3. Refactor code to use new error handling approach. 4. Rebuild and redeploy applications.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Migrate to alternative error handling
allReplace failure crate usage with maintained alternatives like anyhow or thiserror
cargo remove failure
cargo add anyhow
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Isolate affected applications in containers or sandboxes to limit potential damage
- Implement strict input validation and monitoring for abnormal application behavior
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Cargo.toml or Cargo.lock for failure crate version 0.1.5 or earlierCheck Version:
grep -r "failure" Cargo.toml && grep -A2 -B2 "failure" Cargo.lockVerify Fix Applied:
Verify failure crate is removed from dependencies and application builds successfully with alternative error handling📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Application crashes with memory corruption errors
- Unexpected panics in Rust applications
Network Indicators:
- Unusual outbound connections from affected applications
SIEM Query:
process.name: "rust_app" AND (event.type: "crash" OR event.type: "panic")🔗 References
- https://boats.gitlab.io/blog/post/failure-to-fehler/
- https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/failure/issues/336
- https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2020-0036.html
- https://boats.gitlab.io/blog/post/failure-to-fehler/
- https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/failure/issues/336
- https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2020-0036.html
