CVE-2024-51481 LOW

CVE-2024-51481: Nix allows macOS sandbox escape via built-in builders

Vendor Nixos
Product nix
Weakness CWE-693
Published October 31, 2024
Last update October 31, 2024

CVSS base score

1.0/10
Attack vector Local
Attack complexity High
Privileges required Low
User interaction
Confidentiality
Integrity

CVSS vector

CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:P/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:N

What the vulnerability does

01Description

Nix is a package manager for Linux and other Unix systems. On macOS, built-in builders (such as `builtin:fetchurl`, exposed to users with `import <nix/fetchurl.nix>`) were not executed in the macOS sandbox. Thus, these builders (which are running under the `nixbld*` users) had read access to world-readable paths and write access to world-writable paths outside of the sandbox. This issue is fixed in 2.18.9, 2.19.7, 2.20.9, 2.21.5, 2.22.4, 2.23.4, and 2.24.10. Note that sandboxing is not enabled by default on macOS. The Nix sandbox is not primarily intended as a security mechanism, but as an aid to improve reproducibility and purity of Nix builds. However, sandboxing *can* mitigate the impact of other security issues by limiting what parts of the host system a build has access to.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

October 31, 2024 CVE published
October 31, 2024 Record updated