VDB
KO
HIGH 8.1

GHSA-7cx2-g3h9-382p

Crawl4AI: Arbitrary file write (symlink/TOCTOU) plus log and webhook-header injection in Docker server

Details

### Summary

Three backward-compatible hardening fixes in the Docker API server. The headline issue is an arbitrary file write via the screenshot/PDF `output_path`.

### 1. Arbitrary file write via output_path symlink / TOCTOU (primary)

`POST /screenshot` and `POST /pdf` accept an `output_path` constrained to `ALLOWED_OUTPUT_DIR` by `validate_output_path`. The 0.8.7 check was string-only: it did not resolve symlinks, so a symlinked path component inside the output directory could redirect the write outside the directory, and the final `open()` followed symlinks. On a deployment where the runtime user can write executable/cron locations this is an arbitrary-write to code-execution primitive. The API is unauthenticated by default.

Fix: `validate_output_path` now resolves the real path (symlinks) of the parent and re-checks containment, and the write uses `O_NOFOLLOW` (`write_output_file`). `output_path` remains supported.

### 2. CRLF log injection (CWE-117)

User-controlled URLs/errors reflected into log lines could embed CR/LF and forge additional log entries. Fix: a logging filter strips CR/LF/control characters from all records.

### 3. Webhook request-header injection (CWE-93/CWE-113)

User-supplied webhook headers were sent verbatim, allowing CRLF and hop-by-hop / sensitive header injection on the outbound webhook request. Fix: webhook headers are validated (name pattern, no control characters, deny `Host`/`Content-Length`/`Transfer-Encoding`/`Authorization`/`Cookie`/...), with early request-time rejection.

### Impact

Arbitrary file write (potential code execution) for #1; log forging for #2; request smuggling / header injection on outbound webhooks for #3.

### Workarounds

- Upgrade to the patched version. - Enable authentication (`CRAWL4AI_API_TOKEN`). - Run the container with a read-only root filesystem.

### Credits

Internal security audit (Crawl4AI maintainers).

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Affected packages

PyPI / crawl4ai
Introduced in: 0 Fixed in: 0.8.8
Fix pip install --upgrade 'crawl4ai>=0.8.8'

References