Debian Security Advisory

DLA-3266-1 viewvc -- LTS security update

Date Reported:
11 Jan 2023
Affected Packages:
viewvc
Vulnerable:
Yes
Security database references:
In Mitre's CVE dictionary: CVE-2023-22456, CVE-2023-22464.
More information:

It was discovered that there were two issues in viewvc, a web-based interface for browsing Subversion and CVS repositories. The attack vectors involved files with unsafe names; names that, when embedded into an HTML stream, could cause the browser to run unwanted code.

  • CVE-2023-22456

    ViewVC, a browser interface for CVS and Subversion version control repositories, as a cross-site scripting vulnerability that affects versions prior to 1.2.2 and 1.1.29. The impact of this vulnerability is mitigated by the need for an attacker to have commit privileges to a Subversion repository exposed by an otherwise trusted ViewVC instance. The attack vector involves files with unsafe names (names that, when embedded into an HTML stream, would cause the browser to run unwanted code), which themselves can be challenging to create. Users should update to at least version 1.2.2 (if they are using a 1.2.x version of ViewVC) or 1.1.29 (if they are using a 1.1.x version). ViewVC 1.0.x is no longer supported, so users of that release lineage should implement a workaround. Users can edit their ViewVC EZT view templates to manually HTML-escape changed paths during rendering. Locate in your template set's `revision.ezt` file references to those changed paths, and wrap them with `[format "html"]` and `[end]`. For most users, that means that references to `[changes.path]` will become `[format "html"][changes.path][end]`. (This workaround should be reverted after upgrading to a patched version of ViewVC, else changed path names will be doubly escaped.)

  • CVE-2023-22464

    ViewVC is a browser interface for CVS and Subversion version control repositories. Versions prior to 1.2.3 and 1.1.30 are vulnerable to cross-site scripting. The impact of this vulnerability is mitigated by the need for an attacker to have commit privileges to a Subversion repository exposed by an otherwise trusted ViewVC instance. The attack vector involves files with unsafe names (names that, when embedded into an HTML stream, would cause the browser to run unwanted code), which themselves can be challenging to create. Users should update to at least version 1.2.3 (if they are using a 1.2.x version of ViewVC) or 1.1.30 (if they are using a 1.1.x version). ViewVC 1.0.x is no longer supported, so users of that release lineage should implement one of the following workarounds. Users can edit their ViewVC EZT view templates to manually HTML-escape changed path "copyfrom paths" during rendering. Locate in your template set's `revision.ezt` file references to those changed paths, and wrap them with `[format "html"]` and `[end]`. For most users, that means that references to `[changes.copy_path]` will become `[format "html"][changes.copy_path][end]`. (This workaround should be reverted after upgrading to a patched version of ViewVC, else "copyfrom path" names will be doubly escaped.)

For Debian 10 Buster, these problems have been fixed in version 1.1.26-1+deb10u1.

We recommend that you upgrade your viewvc packages.

Further information about Debian LTS security advisories, how to apply these updates to your system and frequently asked questions can be found at: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS