Threat Intelligence Database

In Eclipse Theia versions up to and including 1.69.0, opening a folder starts source control integration without requiring the user to trust the folder first. This affects applications built on Theia that include the git integration, such as the Theia IDE. Both Theia's own `@theia/git` extension and the builtin VS Code `git` extension run git commands such as `git status` as soon as a repository is detected. Since git honors repository-local configuration, a folder containing an attacker-controlled `.git/config` with `core.fsmonitor` (or a comparable hook-like setting) causes the configured command to be executed. The configuration can be delivered by burying a bare repository inside a regular repository (OVE-20210718-0001), so cloning an attacker-supplied repository and opening it in a Theia-based application is sufficient to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user, without any confirmation prompt. As of 1.70.0, plugins that declare `capabilities.untrustedWorkspaces.supported: false`, which includes the builtin git extension, are no longer loaded or activated in an untrusted workspace, and the deprecated `@theia/git` extension has been removed, so no git command is executed against an untrusted folder.

Eclipse Theia versions up to and including 1.73.1 have a vulnerability in the @theia/filesystem backend where HTTP file-download endpoints allow unauthenticated clients to read arbitrary files on the backend filesystem. This occurs because client-supplied URIs are converted directly to filesystem paths without confinement, and HTTP middleware does not enforce token validation for non-WebSocket HTTP requests in browser deployments. Electron mode is not affected by this issue.

Eclipse Theia versions 0.7.0 through 1.73.1 contain a vulnerability in the PreferenceUtils.merge function that allows prototype pollution via crafted preference values in workspace settings files. This occurs because the merge function does not reject prototype-related keys, potentially altering application logic when a workspace is opened.

In Eclipse Theia since version 1.26.0, the backend /services/request-service RPC accepts an attacker-controlled URL from any client connected to the standard /services messaging endpoint, performs the HTTP request server-side, and returns the full response body to the caller. Because the destination URL is neither validated nor allowlisted, a remote attacker with access to the Theia service connection can issue server-side HTTP requests to localhost or other backend-reachable hosts and read their responses, exposing internal administrative endpoints, cloud instance metadata services, and other resources that are intentionally outside the browser network boundary. The vulnerability affects deployments where the Theia service connection is reachable by untrusted users (for example, multi-tenant or publicly-reachable Theia deployments).

In affected versions of Eclipse Theia (1.8.1 and later), the browser backend exposes privileged terminal RPC over WebSocket (/services/shell-terminal, /services/terminals/:id) without service-level authentication. WebSocket origin validation in @theia/core is fail-open: connections are accepted when the Origin header is missing or when no THEIA_HOSTS allowlist is configured (the default). The Socket.IO integration additionally replaces the real Origin header with a client-supplied fix-origin header that an attacker can control or omit. As a result, a foreign-origin web page visited by a user with a running Theia instance can open the /services WebSocket namespace, invoke terminal creation, attach to the resulting terminal data channel, execute arbitrary OS commands, and read their output. This affects both local developer setups (drive-by attack) and hosted or tunneled deployments without strong external authentication. A fix is in development that enforces same-origin validation by default, removes trust in the fix-origin header, gates HTTP and WebSocket access on a SameSite=Strict; HttpOnly connection-token cookie, and sanitizes shell terminal creation options.