Threat Intelligence Database

### Summary CredSweeper's deep scanner does not enforce `recursive_limit_size` as a hard limit. Several recursive scanners fully decompress or fully read attacker-controlled content before the remaining budget is validated, and `AbstractScanner.recursive_scan()` continues processing even when the residual budget is already negative. This allows a crafted archive to bypass the intended recursive zip-bomb protection and force excessive memory / CPU consumption when deep scanning is enabled (`--depth > 0`). I confirmed this on upstream commit `8b081acf04311eafe8fbd66ea41d02b0a7a4c6f6` / package version `1.15.8`. The issue has two closely related exploitation paths that share the same root cause: 1. Single-stream decompressor bypass: `gzip`, `bzip2`, and `lzma/xz` inputs are fully decompressed first, then the remaining budget is computed, and the recursive scan proceeds even if the result is negative. 2. Multi-entry archive cumulative-budget bypass: `zip` and `tar` entries are checked only against the original per-entry budget, not against a mutable cumulative remaining budget shared across sibling entries. Multiple individually small entries can therefore exceed the configured recursive limit in aggregate. The impact is availability/resource exhaustion. I did not confirm arbitrary code execution, arbitrary file write, or data exfiltration from this issue. ### Details The vulnerability is in the recursive deep-scanning path that is used when CredSweeper scans container-like inputs recursively. The relevant call chain is: - `credsweeper/app.py:323` `self.deep_scanner.scan(content_provider, self.config.depth, self.config.size_limit)` - `credsweeper/deep_scanner/abstract_scanner.py:269-305` The initial deep-scan entry point passes a recursive size budget into nested scanners. - `credsweeper/deep_scanner/abstract_scanner.py:58-94` `recursive_scan()` stops only on: - negative depth - data shorter than `MIN_DATA_LEN` It does **not** stop when `recursive_limit_size` is negative. Exact source-level issue: 1. Negative budgets are still accepted `credsweeper/deep_scanner/abstract_scanner.py:71-91` ```python if 0 > depth: return candidates depth -= 1 if MIN_DATA_LEN > len(data_provider.data): return candidates ... new_candidates = self.deep_scan_with_fallback(data_provider, depth, recursive_limit_size) ``` There is no guard such as `if recursive_limit_size < 0: return`. 2. Full decompression happens before any hard budget enforcement `credsweeper/deep_scanner/gzip_scanner.py:33-43` ```python with gzip.open(io.BytesIO(data_provider.data)) as f: gzip_content_provider = DataContentProvider(data=f.read(), ...) new_limit = recursive_limit_size - len(gzip_content_provider.data) gzip_candidates = self.recursive_scan(gzip_content_provider, depth, new_limit) ``` `credsweeper/deep_scanner/bzip2_scanner.py:38-43` ```python bzip2_content_provider = DataContentProvider(data=bz2.decompress(data_provider.data), ...) new_limit = recursive_limit_size - len(bzip2_content_provider.data) bzip2_candidates = self.recursive_scan(bzip2_content_provider, depth, new_limit) ``` `credsweeper/deep_scanner/lzma_scanner.py:38-43` ```python lzma_content_provider = DataContentProvider(data=lzma.decompress(data_provider.data), ...) new_limit = recursive_limit_size - len(lzma_content_provider.data) lzma_candidates = self.recursive_scan(lzma_content_provider, depth, new_limit) ``` The decompressed payload is materialized in memory first. Only afterwards is the residual budget calculated, and because `recursive_scan()` accepts negative budgets, the oversize content is still scanned. 3. Multi-entry archives use per-entry checks instead of a shared cumulative budget `credsweeper/deep_scanner/zip_scanner.py:49-60` ```python if 0 > recursive_limit_size - zfl.file_size: continue with zf.open(zfl) as f: zip_content_provider = DataContentProvider(data=f.read(), ...) new_limit = recursive_limit_size - len(zip_content_provider.data) zip_candidates = self.recursive_scan(zip_content_provider, depth, new_limit) ``` `credsweeper/deep_scanner/tar_scanner.py:48-59` ```python if 0 > recursive_limit_size - tfi.size: continue with tf.extractfile(tfi) as f: tar_content_provider = DataContentProvider(data=f.read(), ...) new_limit = recursive_limit_size - len(tar_content_provider.data) tar_candidates = self.recursive_scan(tar_content_provider, depth, new_limit) ``` These checks use the same original `recursive_limit_size` for every sibling entry. The budget is not decremented globally after the first extracted member. Therefore a `zip` or `tar` with many individually small files can exceed the intended aggregate extraction limit. 4. Same code pattern is also present in RPM scanning `credsweeper/deep_scanner/rpm_scanner.py:42-51` The RPM scanner uses the same per-member pattern as ZIP/TAR. I did not include an RPM runtime PoC below only because it requires an extra third-party pars