Diesel's SQLite backend has possible UTF-8 corruption
Key facts
- Attack vector
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- Privileges required
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- User interaction
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- Attack complexity
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- Impact type
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- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
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- Fix status
- Fixed
No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from GitHub.
Summary
Diesel uses the `sqlite3_value_text` function to receive strings from SQLite while deserializing query results. We misinterpreted the corresponding [SQLite](https://sqlite.org/c3ref/value_blob.html) documentation that this function always returns a UTF-8 encoded string values as `*const c_char`. Based on that we used `str::from_utf8_unchecked` to construct a Rust string slice without any additional UTF-8 checks in place. It turned out that this function doesn't always return correct UTF-8 strings. For field of the SQLite side storage type `BLOB` this pointer can contain arbitrary bytes, which makes the usage of `str::from_utf8_unchecked` unsound as this violates the safety contract of `str` to only contain valid UTF-8 encoded Strings. ## Mitigation The preferred mitigation to the outlined problem is to update to a Diesel version 2.3.8 or newer, which includes fixes for the problem. ## Resolution Diesel now correctly checks whether the provides byte buffer is actually valid UTF-8, instead of relying on SQLite's documentation. This fix is included in the `2.3.8` release.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | diesel (crates.io) | before 2.3.8 | 2.3.8 | Patch available | GHSA-h5x4-m2qf-r4f2 |
- diesel (crates.io) Vendor— Affected before 2.3.8 Fixed in 2.3.8 Patch available GHSA-h5x4-m2qf-r4f2
Remediation
- Fix · GHSA-h5x4-m2qf-r4f2 diesel (crates.io) Fixed in 2.3.8 Advisory →
Timeline
- 2026-10-03 Threatist record created from GHSA-h5x4-m2qf-r4f2
References
Sources
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