wazuh-dashboard uses an outdated version of node.js

[planinzj]

Nessus scans are finding a vulnerability on the Wazuh server (Severity=MEDIUM, Plugin ID=214404), CVE-2025-23085. The issue is with the embedded node.js run-time environment in the path /usr/share/wazuh-dashboard/node/bin/node. The current version of this embedded node.js is 18.19.0. Here is the Nessus information on this finding:

Synopsis
Node.js - JavaScript run-time environment is affected by multiple vulnerabilities.

Description
The version of Node.js installed on the remote host is prior to 18.20.6, 20.18.2, 22.13.1, 23.6.1. It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the Tuesday, January 21, 2025 Security Releases advisory.

• A memory leak could occur when a remote peer abruptly closes the socket without sending a GOAWAY notification. Additionally, if an invalid header was detected by nghttp2, causing the connection to be terminated by the peer, the same leak was triggered. This flaw could lead to increased memory consumption and potential denial of service under certain conditions. This vulnerability affects HTTP/2 Server users on Node.js v18.x, v20.x, v22.x and v23.x. Impact: Thank you, to newtmitch for reporting this vulnerability and thank you RafaelGSS for fixing it. (CVE-2025-23085)

• With the aid of the diagnostics_channel utility, an event can be hooked into whenever a worker thread is created. This is not limited only to workers but also exposes internal workers, where an instance of them can be fetched, and its constructor can be grabbed and reinstated for malicious usage. This vulnerability affects Permission Model users (--permission) on Node.js v20, v22, and v23. Impact: Thank you, to leodog896 for reporting this vulnerability and thank you RafaelGSS for fixing it. (CVE-2025-23083)

• A vulnerability has been identified in Node.js, specifically affecting the handling of drive names in the Windows environment. Certain Node.js functions do not treat drive names as special on Windows. As a result, although Node.js assumes a relative path, it actually refers to the root directory. On Windows, a path that does not start with the file separator is treated as relative to the current directory. This vulnerability affects Windows users of path.join API. Impact: Thank you, to taise for reporting this vulnerability and thank you tniessen for fixing it. (CVE-2025-23084)

Solution
Upgrade to Node.js version 18.20.6 / 20.18.2 / 22.13.1 / 23.6.1 or later.

[Desvelao]

Wazuh dashboard is based on OpenSearch Dashboards so the 18.19.0 version of NodeJS is inherited. According to this comment (opensearch-project#8463 (comment)) maybe could be possible upgrading to version 20 or 22 but this was not tested. Upgrading the NodeJS version could cause some compatibility problems that should be resolved.

Here there is a not merged pull request related to upgrading to 18.20.4: opensearch-project#8294

I found how to use another NodeJS version that could be applicable to the Wazuh dashboard letting to use a newer version: https://opensearch.org/docs/2.16/install-and-configure/install-dashboards/index/#nodejs-compatibility. If you pretend to use this, you should review if you need extra changes to Wazuh dashboard.