Matrix is an ecosystem for open federated Instant Messaging and Voice over IP. In versions 1.41.0 and prior, unauthorised users can access the name, avatar, topic and number of members of a room if they know the ID of the room. This vulnerability is limited to homeservers where the vulnerable homeserver is in the room and untrusted users are permitted to create groups (communities). By default, only homeserver administrators can create groups. However, homeserver administrators can already access this information in the database or using the admin API. As a result, only homeservers where the configuration setting enable_group_creation has been set to true are impacted. Server administrators should upgrade to 1.41.1 or higher to patch the vulnerability. There are two potential workarounds. Server administrators can set enable_group_creation to false in their homeserver configuration (this is the default value) to prevent creation of groups by non-administrators. Administrators that are using a reverse proxy could, with partial loss of group functionality, block the endpoints /_matrix/client/r0/groups/{group_id}/rooms and /_matrix/client/unstable/groups/{group_id}/rooms.
The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Synapse | Matrix | * | 1.41.1 (excluding) |
There are many different kinds of mistakes that introduce information exposures. The severity of the error can range widely, depending on the context in which the product operates, the type of sensitive information that is revealed, and the benefits it may provide to an attacker. Some kinds of sensitive information include:
Information might be sensitive to different parties, each of which may have their own expectations for whether the information should be protected. These parties include:
Information exposures can occur in different ways:
It is common practice to describe any loss of confidentiality as an “information exposure,” but this can lead to overuse of CWE-200 in CWE mapping. From the CWE perspective, loss of confidentiality is a technical impact that can arise from dozens of different weaknesses, such as insecure file permissions or out-of-bounds read. CWE-200 and its lower-level descendants are intended to cover the mistakes that occur in behaviors that explicitly manage, store, transfer, or cleanse sensitive information.