Unsafe Deserialization in nvflare (CVE-2022-34668)
Summary
Vulnerability in nvflare (CVE-2022-34668). Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover. Mitigation: upgrade to 2.1.4 or later.
Original description
The description as published by the source.
Impact
NVFLARE contains a vulnerability where deserialization of Untrusted Data due to Pickle usage may allow an unprivileged network attacker to cause Remote Code Execution, Denial Of Service, and Impact to both Confidentiality and Integrity.
All versions before 2.1.4 are affected.
CVSS Score = 9.8
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Patches
The patch is included in nvflare==2.1.4
This new version uses MessagePack instead of Pickle to do serialization and deserialization.
Some object serializations supported by Pickle are not supported by MessagePack. We have provided out of box support for some built-in NVFLARE objects. For object serializations unsupported by MessagePack, the user will need to convert the objects to numpy or bytes before sending over to remote machines. The list of supported object types are listed in https://github.com/NVIDIA/NVFlare/blob/2.1/nvflare/fuel/utils/fobs/README.rst
Workarounds
No workarounds available.
Additional information
Issue Found by: Oliver Sellwood (Nintorac) and Elias Hohl
Source: OSV.dev (Open Source Vulnerabilities) NVD GitHub Advisory OSV
Auto-generated summary
Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.
A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2022-34668 has been found in nvflare.
Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover.
What to do: upgrade nvflare to 2.1.4 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "nvflare CVE-2022-34668" on the vendor's site.
CVE-2022-34668 (nvflare) — CWE-502
Attack vector: remote (network-reachable) / unauthenticated / no user interaction
Patched: 2.1.4 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.
Unsafe deserialization (CWE-502) exists in nvflare.
Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of nvflare.
Severity: ?. Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover.
Update to 2.1.4.
Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.
Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'nvflare' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.
Response actions
Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order
-
1Identify exposure identify
grep -r 'nvflare' . | grep -v node_modulesリポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で
nvflareを grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。 -
2Apply patch patch
Upgrade nvflare to 2.1.4ステージング環境で 2.1.4 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。
-
3Post-deployment verification verify
Confirm patched version is live in productionパッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。
Affected packages
References
- advisory nvd.nist.gov
- package github.com
- web github.com
- web github.com
- web github.com
- web packetstormsecurity.com