Alexander Decot
PoC: ModelScan blocklist bypass via importlib.import_module
9f41555
# PoC: ModelScan Blocklist Bypass via importlib.import_module
**Target:** protectai/modelscan
**CWE:** CWE-693 (Protection Mechanism Failure)
## Vulnerability
ModelScan's pickle scanner maintains a blocklist of 21 dangerous modules (os, subprocess, shutil, etc.). However, `importlib` is not on the blocklist. A pickle using `importlib.import_module('os')` bypasses all scanning and returns the full `os` module, enabling arbitrary code execution.
The bypass defeats the entire blocklist — all 21 blocked modules can be imported via `importlib.import_module()` indirection.
## Files
- `poc_importlib_bypass.pkl` — 36-byte bypass payload (scans clean)
- `poc_importlib_bypass.py` — PoC generator script
- `reproduce.sh` — Full reproduction script
## Quick Reproduce
```bash
pip install modelscan
python3 poc_importlib_bypass.py
modelscan -p poc_importlib_bypass.pkl # "No issues found!"
python3 -c "import pickle; m=pickle.load(open('poc_importlib_bypass.pkl','rb')); m.system('id')"
```