Bug 2345794 (CVE-2024-3220)

Summary: CVE-2024-3220 python: Default mimetype known files writeable on Windows
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: unspecifiedCC: dfreiber, drow, jburrell, jeder, ljawale, luizcosta, nweather, rbobbitt, vkumar
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the mimetypes standard library module for Python. On Windows systems, the default list of known file locations is writable, meaning other users can create invalid files to cause `MemoryError` to be raised on Python runtime startup or have file extensions be interpreted as the incorrect file type. This defect is caused by the default locations of Linux and macOS platforms (such as `/etc/mime.types`) also being used on Windows, where they are user-writable locations (`C:\etc\mime.types`).
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-02-14 17:01:31 UTC 
There is a defect in the CPython standard library module “mimetypes” where on Windows the default list of known file locations are writable meaning other users can create invalid files to cause MemoryError to be raised on Python runtime startup or have file extensions be interpreted as the incorrect file type.

This defect is caused by the default locations of Linux and macOS platforms (such as “/etc/mime.types”) also being used on Windows, where they are user-writable locations (“C:\etc\mime.types”).

To work-around this issue a user can call mimetypes.init() with an empty list (“[]”) on Windows platforms to avoid using the default list of known file locations.