Pipecat vulnerable to Remote Code Execution by Pickle Deserialization via LivekitFrameSerializer

Vulnerability Description

Pipecat is an open-source Python framework for building real-time voice and multimodal conversational agents. Versions 0.0.41 through 0.0.93 have a vulnerability in `LivekitFrameSerializer` – an optional, non-default, undocumented frame serializer class (now deprecated) intended for LiveKit integration. The class's `deserialize()` method uses Python's `pickle.loads()` on data received from WebSocket clients without any validation or sanitization. This means that a malicious WebSocket client can send a crafted pickle payload to execute arbitrary code on the Pipecat server. The vulnerable code resides in `src/pipecat/serializers/livekit.py` (around line 73), where untrusted WebSocket message data is passed directly into `pickle.loads()` for deserialization. If a Pipecat server is configured to use LivekitFrameSerializer and is listening on an external interface (e.g. 0.0.0.0), an attacker on the network (or the internet, if the service is exposed) could achieve remote code execution (RCE) on the server by sending a malicious pickle payload. Version 0.0.94 contains a fix. Users of Pipecat should avoid or replace unsafe deserialization and improve network security configuration. The best mitigation is to stop using the vulnerable LivekitFrameSerializer altogether. Those who require LiveKit functionality should upgrade to the latest Pipecat version and switch to the recommended `LiveKitTransport` or another secure method provided by the framework. Additionally, always follow secure coding practices: never trust client-supplied data, and avoid Python pickle (or similar unsafe deserialization) in network-facing components.

References

• https://github.com/pipecat-ai/pipecat/security/advisories/GHSA-c2jg-5cp7-6wc7