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Stable StructuresApplication · Dfinity

CVE-2024-4435

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-05-21
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 0.6.0 or later.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
When storing unbounded types in a BTreeMap, a node is represented as a linked list of "memory chunks". It was discovered recently that when we deallocate a node, in some cases only the first memory chunk is deallocated, and the rest of the memory chunks remain (incorrectly) allocated, causing a memory leak. In the worst case, depending on how a canister uses the BTreeMap, an adversary could interact with the canister through its API and trigger interactions with the map that keep consuming memory due to the memory leak. This could potentially lead to using an excessive amount of memory, or even running out of memory. This issue has been fixed in #212 https://github.com/dfinity/stable-structures/pull/212  by changing the logic for deallocating nodes to ensure that all of a node's memory chunks are deallocated and users are asked to upgrade to version 0.6.4.. Tests have been added to prevent regressions of this nature moving forward. Note: Users of stable-structure < 0.6.0 are not affected. Users who are not storing unbounded types in BTreeMap are not affected and do not need to upgrade. Otherwise, an upgrade to version 0.6.4 is necessary.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-401

Allocated memory is never released on some path, so a long-running service or a repeatedly triggered request steadily consumes memory until performance degrades or the process crashes. Attackers exploit it by simply driving the leaking path. Remediation is pairing every allocation with a release and using ownership patterns or tooling to catch what leaks.

General guidance for the memory leak class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Stable StructuresApplication
Affected:< 0.6.0

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 0.6.0 or later
Fixed in 0.6.0
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

0.6.4

  1. Locate the Cargo.toml file or dependency configuration for your project that includes the stable-structures crate
  2. Update the stable-structures dependency version to 0.6.4 (e.g., stable-structures = "0.6.4")
  3. Run cargo update stable-structures or cargo build to fetch and compile the fixed version
  4. If using a canister project, rebuild the canister with cargo build --target target.json
  5. Verify the canister compiles and functions correctly, especially if using BTreeMap with unbounded types

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,950. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2024-4435 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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