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@april
Last active November 25, 2024 02:43
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find all apps using Electron and their versions, on macOS systems
# latest supported electron version as of october 2024
LATEST_SUPPORTED_VERSION=30
RED='\033[0;31m'
GREEN='\033[0;32m'
NC='\033[0m' # no color
mdfind "kind:app" 2>/dev/null | sort -u | while read app;
do
filename="$app/Contents/Frameworks/Electron Framework.framework/Electron Framework"
if [[ -f $filename ]]; then
appname=$(echo $app | awk -F'/' '{print $NF}')
electronVersion=$(strings "$filename" | grep "Chrome/" | grep -i Electron | grep -v '%s' | sort -u | cut -f 3 -d '/')
major=$(echo $electronVersion | awk -F'.' '{print $1}')
if [ "$major" -lt "$LATEST_SUPPORTED_VERSION" ]; then
printf "App Name: ${RED}${appname}${NC}\n"
else
printf "App Name: ${GREEN}${appname}${NC}\n"
fi
echo "Electron Version: ${electronVersion}"
echo -n "File Name: ${filename}"
echo -e "\n"
fi
done
@acdha
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acdha commented Sep 27, 2023

I had to use strings "$filename" to handle apps with spaces in the name.

@april
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april commented Sep 27, 2023

Fixed, thanks @acdha.

@adamshostack
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Should you add ~/Applications ? Also, less likely, /System/Applications and /Applications/Utilities — Adobe puts a fair bit in the /Apps/Utilities folder, maybe others do. I don't see anything with Electron there on my system.

@TrimarcJake
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Quick and dirty improvement of output:

for filename in /Applications/*.app/Contents/Frameworks/Electron\ Framework.framework/Electron\ Framework
do
  appName=$(echo $filename | cut -f 3 -d '/') 
  echo "App Name:         $appName"

  electronVersion=$(strings "$filename" | grep "Chrome/" | grep -i Electron | grep -v '%s' | sort -u | cut -f 3 -d '/')
  echo "Electron Version: $electronVersion"
  
  echo -n "File Name:        $filename "
  echo -e "\n"
done

@april
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april commented Sep 28, 2023

That's great Jake, I'll make that the default version. :)

@adamshostack, I'm thinking about ways to improve this.

@TrimarcJake
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Cool! I was also going to add in highlighting of vulnerable versions, but that pesky job thing got in the way.

@april
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april commented Sep 28, 2023

@adamshostack (and @TrimarcJake) -- I just made a change such that it will find every app on your system now, regardless of where it lives. If you'd be willing to test it out, I'd appreciate that.

@TrimarcJake
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@april working for me!

@april
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april commented Sep 28, 2023

Heck yeah, thanks for testing it for me and thanks to @adamshostack for nudging me to think about a better way to find things. :)

@adamshostack
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Win!

~/Downloads/Twitter Archive Browser.app. No way there'd be bad webp there! :)

@leoncowle
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Very useful. Thanks!

Tiniest did-you-know:
You can replace:
appName=$(echo $filename | cut -f 3 -d '/')
with:
appName=$(basename "${app}");

@april
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april commented Sep 28, 2023

Nice thinking, I inlined it as well.

@TrimarcJake
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@leoncowle TIL!

@leoncowle
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Nice thinking, I inlined it as well.

Normally I would inline too, but ${app} needs quotes around it (i.e. "${app}"), otherwise basename only uses the 1st word of the app name if it has space(s) in it. Doable inline, with escaping quotes, etc, but maybe easier to keep separate?

@april
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april commented Sep 28, 2023

Are you sure? This worked just fine for me in bash and zsh. 😅

@TrimarcJake
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Same:
image

@leoncowle
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Hmmmm, on mine (bash, not using the zsh shebang at the top):

2nd one is Teams, but name is just showing as "Microsoft". Latest copy & paste of your code above.

...
...

App Name: Authy
Electron Version: 16.2.8
File Name: /Applications/Authy Desktop.app/Contents/Frameworks/Electron Framework.framework/Electron Framework

App Name: Microsoft
Electron Version: 19.1.8
File Name: /Applications/Microsoft Teams.app/Contents/Frameworks/Electron Framework.framework/Electron Framework

App Name: Postman.app
Electron Version: 18.3.5
File Name: /Applications/Postman.app/Contents/Frameworks/Electron Framework.framework/Electron Framework

...
...

@TrimarcJake
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@leoncowle I replicated your behavior.
image

@TrimarcJake
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TrimarcJake commented Sep 28, 2023

You can still inline it, I think?

This

echo "App Name:          $(basename "${app}")"

worked great!

@adamshostack
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adamshostack commented Sep 28, 2023

Randomly, why find apps vs "Electron Framework.framework"? Would that be faster and more accurate? (Are there places there's files of kind other than app that might have electron?)

Edit: mdfind doesn't seem to search inside apps

bash-3.2$ mdfind 'Electron Framework.framework' 2>/dev/null | sort -u
/Users/adam/bin/vulnerable-electron.sh
bash-3.2$

@april
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april commented Sep 29, 2023

Because mdfind doesn't search inside bundles. :\

@janvhs
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janvhs commented Sep 29, 2023

Btw, mdfind uses the user's locale for their syntax. Therefore a German user would need to use mdfind "art:app"

@april
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april commented Sep 29, 2023

I tried overriding LANG=de_DE.UTF-8 LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 LC_ALL=de_DE.UTF-8, and setting the language for Terminal to German, and it still insists on using en_US.

Does overriding any of those to en_US.UTF-8 let mdfind work with kind:app?

@janvhs
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janvhs commented Sep 30, 2023

No that doesn't seem to change anything. Idk maybe mdfind uses the language set via system settings or something

@janvhs
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janvhs commented Sep 30, 2023

Just changed my mac to English and now it works

@FnTm
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FnTm commented Oct 5, 2023

Wanted to share a slightly updated version of the script above that we used internally to help make running the script more actionable for our employees. The main change is that it outputs and highlights only the apps that are on unsafe electron versions.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

RED='\033[0;31m'
NC='\033[0m' # No Color

# patched versions for CVE-2023-4863: 22.3.24, 24.8.3, 25.8.1, 26.2.1
mdfind "kind:app" 2>/dev/null | sort -u | while read app;
do
  filename="$app/Contents/Frameworks/Electron Framework.framework/Electron Framework"
  if [[ -f $filename ]]; then

    electronVersion=$(strings "$filename" | grep "Chrome/" | grep -i Electron | grep -v '%s' | sort -u | cut -f 3 -d '/')

    semver=( ${electronVersion//./ } )
    major="${semver[0]}"
    minor="${semver[1]}"
    patch="${semver[2]}"
    echo "${major}.${minor}.${patch}"

    if [[ ( $major -lt 22 ) || ( $major == 22 && $minor -lt 3 ) || ( $major == 22 && $minor == 3 && $patch -lt 26 )
    || ( $major == 23 )
    || ( $major == 24 && $minor -lt 8 ) || ( $major == 24 && $minor == 8 && $patch -lt 6 )
    || ( $major == 25 && $minor -lt 8 ) || ( $major == 25 && $minor == 8 && $patch -lt 4 )
    || ( $major == 26 && $minor -lt 2 ) || ( $major == 26 && $minor == 2 && $patch -lt 4 )
    || ( $major == 27 && $minor -lt 0 ) || ( $major == 27 && $minor == 0 && $patch -lt 0 )
     ]]; then
      printf "App Name:          ${RED}$(basename ${app})${NC}\n"
      echo "Electron Version:  $electronVersion"
      echo -n "File Name:         $filename "
      echo -e "\n"
    fi
  fi
done

@april
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april commented Oct 23, 2024

went ahead and updated the script today:

  • it's no longer specifically looking for CVE versions (since they're all unsupported version now anyways)
  • it does look for unsupported versions, and marks them in red versus green
  • it should now be both bash and zsh compatible

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