CVE-2020-36438
📋 TL;DR
This vulnerability in the tiny_future Rust crate allows data races and memory corruption when Future<T> objects are sent or shared between threads without proper synchronization. It affects Rust applications using tiny_future versions before 0.4.0 that use multi-threading or async execution.
💻 Affected Systems
- tiny_future Rust crate
📦 What is this software?
Tiny Future by Tiny Future Project
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Memory corruption leading to arbitrary code execution, data breaches, or complete system compromise through race conditions in multi-threaded environments.
Likely Case
Application crashes, data corruption, or undefined behavior due to race conditions when Future objects are improperly shared between threads.
If Mitigated
Limited impact if application doesn't use multi-threading or properly isolates Future objects, though risk remains for future code changes.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires specific multi-threaded programming patterns and race condition triggering.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 0.4.0 and later
Vendor Advisory: https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2020-0118.html
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Update Cargo.toml to require tiny_future >= 0.4.0
2. Run 'cargo update tiny_future'
3. Rebuild and redeploy application
4. Test multi-threaded functionality
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Avoid multi-threaded Future sharing
allManually ensure Future objects are not sent or shared between threads
Use alternative future crate
allReplace tiny_future with a different async/await implementation
cargo remove tiny_future
cargo add futures
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Isolate affected code to single-threaded execution only
- Implement manual synchronization around all Future object accesses
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Cargo.lock or run 'cargo tree | grep tiny_future' to see if version < 0.4.0 is usedCheck Version:
grep tiny_future Cargo.lock | head -1Verify Fix Applied:
Verify tiny_future version is >= 0.4.0 in Cargo.lock and test multi-threaded functionality📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Segmentation faults
- Unexpected thread panics
- Memory access violation errors
Network Indicators:
- None specific - this is a local memory corruption issue
SIEM Query:
Application logs containing 'thread panicked' or 'segmentation fault' in Rust applications using tiny_future🔗 References
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rustsec/advisory-db/main/crates/tiny_future/RUSTSEC-2020-0118.md
- https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2020-0118.html
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rustsec/advisory-db/main/crates/tiny_future/RUSTSEC-2020-0118.md
- https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2020-0118.html
