Skip to content

Tailscale Windows daemon is vulnerable to RCE via CSRF

Critical
mayakacz published GHSA-vqp6-rc3h-83cp Nov 21, 2022

Package

tailscale/tailscale

Affected versions

<1.32.3

Patched versions

1.32.3, 1.33.2

Description

A vulnerability identified in the Tailscale Windows client allows a malicious website to reconfigure the Tailscale daemon tailscaled, which can then be used to remotely execute code.

Affected platforms: Windows
Patched Tailscale client versions: v1.32.3 or later, v1.33.257 or later (unstable)

What happened?

In the Tailscale Windows client, the local API was bound to a local TCP socket, and communicated with the Windows client GUI in cleartext with no Host header verification. This allowed an attacker-controlled website visited by the node to rebind DNS to an attacker-controlled DNS server, and then make local API requests in the client, including changing the coordination server to an attacker-controlled coordination server.

Who is affected?

All Windows clients prior to version v.1.32.3 are affected.

What should I do?

If you are running Tailscale on Windows, upgrade to v1.32.3 or later to remediate the issue.

What is the impact?

An attacker-controlled coordination server can send malicious URL responses to the client, including pushing executables or installing an SMB share. These allow the attacker to remotely execute code on the node.

Reviewing all logs confirms this vulnerability was not triggered or exploited.

Credits

We would like to thank Emily Trau and Jamie McClymont (CyberCX) for reporting this issue. Further detail is available in their blog post.

References

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, contact Tailscale support.

Severity

Critical

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
Low
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:H

CVE ID

CVE-2022-41924

Weaknesses

Credits