CVE-2022-1240
📋 TL;DR
A heap buffer overflow vulnerability in radare2's Mach-O binary format parser allows attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause denial of service. This affects users of radare2 reverse engineering framework who analyze untrusted Mach-O files. The vulnerability is triggered when parsing specially crafted Mach-O binaries.
💻 Affected Systems
- radare2
📦 What is this software?
Radare2 by Radare
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Remote code execution leading to complete system compromise if radare2 processes attacker-controlled Mach-O files.
Likely Case
Application crash (denial of service) when processing malformed Mach-O files during reverse engineering.
If Mitigated
Limited impact if radare2 only processes trusted binaries in isolated environments.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires crafting malicious Mach-O files and depends on address sanitizer being disabled. The r_str_ncpy function is identified as the vulnerable code path.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: 5.8.6
Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/radareorg/radare2/commit/ca8d8b39f3e34a4fd943270330b80f1148129de4
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Update radare2 to version 5.8.6 or later. 2. Recompile if using source distribution. 3. Restart any running radare2 processes.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Avoid Mach-O file processing
allDo not use radare2 to analyze untrusted Mach-O format binaries
Compile with address sanitizer
linuxEnable address sanitizer during compilation to detect and prevent exploitation
CFLAGS="-fsanitize=address" ./configure
make
make install
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Restrict radare2 usage to trusted binaries only
- Run radare2 in isolated containers or sandboxes when analyzing untrusted files
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check radare2 version with 'r2 -v' and verify if below 5.8.6Check Version:
r2 -v | grep -i versionVerify Fix Applied:
Confirm version is 5.8.6 or higher with 'r2 -v'📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Radare2 crash logs when processing Mach-O files
- Segmentation fault errors in system logs
Network Indicators:
- Unusual network connections from radare2 process if exploited
SIEM Query:
process_name:"r2" AND (event_type:"crash" OR error:"segmentation fault")