ApostropheCMS: Import archives can exhaust server storage and deny service

Review scope and evidence limits

Package: @apostrophecms/import-export, version 3.7.0.

Release tag reviewed: @apostrophecms/[email protected], commit 9500b8b0e1d630d5e07fbb5fd2c25ed0943845ce (September 30, 2026).

Current main reviewed: 5ce3732be0ebdebb4db0f8ef160c81e8671157e6.

The importer, gzip extractor, import permission gate, and core permission implementation have no differences between that release tag and the reviewed main. This follow-up is a static remediation review. We have not repeated the original end-to-end reproductions against the latest release or tested a deployed site. Current exploitability and impact therefore still require maintainer validation; the observations below establish that the reported security checks remain absent in public source. The original emailed PDF contains the original reproduction material. Please refer to that existing private attachment.

Import archive extraction lacks resource quotas and failure cleanup

The current gzip extractor handles destination write errors and waits for write completion; those parts of the original report should no longer be treated as unchanged. The import routes also now require a logged-in user before big-upload processing, as covered by GHSA-86wm-68pq-5jwq.

However, extract() still writes expanded archive entries without per-entry, aggregate decompressed-byte, or entry-count quotas. Archive parsing still precedes document-type authorization. If extraction or parsing fails, import() notifies and rethrows before the later storage.remove() call, with no unconditional cleanup around that lifecycle. The reported residual risk is excessive storage consumption and retained extraction/staging artifacts from authenticated imports. Handling a write error and requiring login do not enforce a storage budget.

Suggested remediation: add configurable streaming quotas based on actual decompressed bytes, cap entries and allowed entry types, bound concurrent imports, and clean local and uploadfs artifacts on every failure. Retain continuation artifacts only under explicit ownership, expiry and total-storage limits.

Source references:

• Gzip extractor
• Import lifecycle and cleanup
• Related authentication fix

Coordination

Vivek R / Winfunc Original reporting team: Mufeed VH / Winfunc