CVE-2021-21318

Opencast is a free, open-source platform to support the management of educational audio and video content. In Opencast before version 9.2 there is a vulnerability in which publishing an episode with strict access rules will overwrite the currently set series access. This allows for an easy denial of access for all users without superuser privileges, effectively hiding the series. Access to series and series metadata on the search service (shown in media module and player) depends on the events published which are part of the series. Publishing an event will automatically publish a series and update access to it. Removing an event or republishing the event should do the same. Affected versions of Opencast may not update the series access or remove a published series if an event is being removed. On removal of an episode, this may lead to an access control list for series metadata with broader access rules than the merged access rules of all remaining events, or the series metadata still being available although all episodes of that series have been removed. This problem is fixed in Opencast 9.2.

Weakness

The product performs an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action, but it does not correctly perform the check. This allows attackers to bypass intended access restrictions.

Affected Software

Extended Description

Assuming a user with a given identity, authorization is the process of determining whether that user can access a given resource, based on the user’s privileges and any permissions or other access-control specifications that apply to the resource. When access control checks are incorrectly applied, users are able to access data or perform actions that they should not be allowed to perform. This can lead to a wide range of problems, including information exposures, denial of service, and arbitrary code execution.

Potential Mitigations

• Divide the product into anonymous, normal, privileged, and administrative areas. Reduce the attack surface by carefully mapping roles with data and functionality. Use role-based access control (RBAC) [REF-229] to enforce the roles at the appropriate boundaries.
• Note that this approach may not protect against horizontal authorization, i.e., it will not protect a user from attacking others with the same role.
• Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
• For example, consider using authorization frameworks such as the JAAS Authorization Framework [REF-233] and the OWASP ESAPI Access Control feature [REF-45].
• For web applications, make sure that the access control mechanism is enforced correctly at the server side on every page. Users should not be able to access any unauthorized functionality or information by simply requesting direct access to that page.
• One way to do this is to ensure that all pages containing sensitive information are not cached, and that all such pages restrict access to requests that are accompanied by an active and authenticated session token associated with a user who has the required permissions to access that page.

References

• https://github.com/opencast/opencast/commit/b18c6a7f81f08ed14884592a6c14c9ab611ad450
• https://github.com/opencast/opencast/security/advisories/GHSA-vpc2-3wcv-qj4w