Description

The SecureDrop Client is a desktop application for journalists to communicate with sources and work with submissions on the SecureDrop Workstation. Prior to version 0.14.1, a malicious SecureDrop Server could obtain code execution on the SecureDrop Client virtual machine (`sd-app`). SecureDrop Server itself has multiple layers of built-in hardening, and is a dedicated physical machine exposed on the internet only via Tor hidden services for the Source and Journalist interfaces, and optionally via remote SSH access over another Tor hidden service. A newsroom's SecureDrop Workstation communicates only with its own dedicated SecureDrop Server.

The SecureDrop Client runs in a dedicated Qubes virtual machine, named `sd-app`, as part of the SecureDrop Workstation. The private OpenPGP key used to decrypt submissions and replies is stored in a separate virtual machine and never accessed directly. The vulnerability lies in the code responsible for downloading replies. The filename of the reply is obtained from the `Content-Disposition` HTTP header and used to write the encrypted reply on disk. Note that filenames are generated and sanitized server-side, and files are downloaded in an encrypted format, so a remote attacker who has not achieved server compromise, such as one posing as a source, could not craft the HTTP response necessary for this attack.

While the filename is later checked to guard against path traversal before being moved into the Client’s data storage directory, ...

Classification

CVE ID: CVE-2025-24888

CVSS Base Severity: HIGH

CVSS Base Score: 8.1

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected Products

Vendor: freedomofpress

Product: securedrop-client

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

EPSS Score: 0.04% (probability of being exploited)

EPSS Percentile: 12.91% (scored less or equal to compared to others)

EPSS Date: 2025-03-14 (when was this score calculated)

References

https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop-client/security/advisories/GHSA-6c3p-chq6-q3j2
https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop-client/commit/120bac14649db0bcf5f24f2eb82731c76843b1ba
https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop-client/blob/0.14.0/client/securedrop_client/utils.py#L79
https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop-client/blob/main/client/securedrop_client/api_jobs/downloads.py#L164
https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop-client/blob/release/0.14.0/client/securedrop_client/sdk/__init__.py#L956-L957
https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/split-gpg

Timeline