Indico discloses local files resulting in Remote Code Execution through LaTeX injection

Overview

[!NOTE] If server-side LaTeX rendering is not in use (ie XELATEX_PATH was not set in indico.conf), this vulnerability does not apply.

Impact

Due to vulnerabilities in TeXLive and obscure LaTeX syntax that allowed circumventing Indico's LaTeX sanitizer, it is possible to use specially-crafted LaTeX snippets which can read local files or execute code with the privileges of the user running Indico on the server.

Patches

It is recommended to update to Indico 3.3.12 as soon as possible. See the docs for instructions on how to update.

It is also strongly recommended to enable the containerized LaTeX renderer (using podman), which isolates it from the rest of the system. See the docs for details - it is very easy and from now on the only recommended/supported way of using LaTeX.

Workarounds

Remove the XELATEX_PATH setting from indico.conf (or comment it out or set it to None) and restart the indico-uwsgi and indico-celery services to disable LaTeX functionality.

For more information

For any questions or comments about this advisory:

• Open a thread in the forum
• Send an email to [email protected]

Affected packages

• indico < 3.3.12

Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release:

• indico 3.3.12