CVE-2024-24576
Rust is a programming language. The Rust Security Response WG was notified that the Rust standard library prior to version 1.77.2 did not properly escape arguments when invoking batch files (with the bat and cmd extensions) on Windows using the Command. An attacker able to control the arguments passed to the spawned process could execute arbitrary shell commands by bypassing the escaping. The severity of this vulnerability is critical for those who invoke batch files on Windows with untrusted arguments. No other platform or use is affected.
The Command::arg and Command::args APIs state in their documentation that the arguments will be passed to the spawned process as-is, regardless of the content of the arguments, and will not be evaluated by a shell. This means it should be safe to pass untrusted input as an argument.
On Windows, the implementation of this is more complex than other platforms, because the Windows API only provides a single string containing all the arguments to the spawned process, and it's up to the spawned process to split them. Most programs use the standard C run-time argv, which in practice results in a mostly consistent way arguments are splitted.
One exception though is cmd.exe (used among other things to execute batch files), which has its own argument splitting logic. That forces the standard library to implement custom escaping for arguments passed to batch files. Unfortunately it was reported that our escaping logic was not thorough enough, and it was possible to pass malicious arguments that would result in arbitrary shell execution.
Due to the complexity of cmd.exe, we didn't identify a solution that would correctly escape arguments in all cases. To maintain our API guarantees, we improved the robustness of the escaping code, and changed the Command API to return an InvalidInput error when it cannot safely escape an argument. This error will be emitted when spawning the process.
The fix is included in Rust 1.77.2. Note that the new escaping logic for batch files errs on the conservative side, and could reject valid arguments. Those who implement the escaping themselves or only handle trusted inputs on Windows can also use the CommandExt::raw_arg method to bypass the standard library's escaping logic.
| Software | From | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| fedoraproject / fedora | 38 | 38.x |
| fedoraproject / fedora | 39 | 39.x |
| fedoraproject / fedora | 40 | 40.x |
| rust-lang / rust | - | 1.77.2 |
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/04/09/16
- https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/io/enum.ErrorKind.html#variant.InvalidInput
- https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/os/windows/process/trait.CommandExt.html#tymethod.raw_arg
- https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/process/struct.Command.html
- https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/process/struct.Command.html#method.arg
- https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/process/struct.Command.html#method.args
- https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues
- https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/security/advisories/GHSA-q455-m56c-85mh
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/N323QAEEUVTJ354BTVQ7UB6LYXUX2BCL/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/RPH3PF7DVSS2LVIRLW254VWUPVKJN46P/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/W7WRFOIAZXYUPGXGR5UEEW7VTTOD4SZ3/
- https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/123335
- https://www.rust-lang.org/policies/security
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A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.
CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.
A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.
Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.
Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.
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