OAuthenticator is an OAuth token library for the JupyerHub login handler. CILogonOAuthenticator is provided by the OAuthenticator package, and lets users log in to a JupyterHub via CILogon. This is primarily used to restrict a JupyterHub only to users of a given institute. The allowed_idps configuration trait of CILogonOAuthenticator is documented to be a list of domains that indicate the institutions whose users are authorized to access this JupyterHub. This authorization is validated by ensuring that the email field provided to us by CILogon has a domain that matches one of the domains listed in allowed_idps.If allowed_idps contains berkeley.edu, you might expect only users with valid current credentials provided by University of California, Berkeley to be able to access the JupyterHub. However, CILogonOAuthenticator does not verify which provider is used by the user to login, only the email address provided. So a user can login with a GitHub account that has email set to <something>@berkeley.edu, and that will be treated exactly the same as someone logging in using the UC Berkeley official Identity Provider. The patch fixing this issue makes a breaking change in how allowed_idps is interpreted. Its no longer a list of domains, but configuration representing the EntityID of the IdPs that are allowed, picked from the list maintained by CILogon. Users are advised to upgrade.
The system’s authorization functionality does not prevent one user from gaining access to another user’s data or record by modifying the key value identifying the data.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oauthenticator | Jupyter | * | 15.0.0 (excluding) |
Retrieval of a user record occurs in the system based on some key value that is under user control. The key would typically identify a user-related record stored in the system and would be used to lookup that record for presentation to the user. It is likely that an attacker would have to be an authenticated user in the system. However, the authorization process would not properly check the data access operation to ensure that the authenticated user performing the operation has sufficient entitlements to perform the requested data access, hence bypassing any other authorization checks present in the system. For example, attackers can look at places where user specific data is retrieved (e.g. search screens) and determine whether the key for the item being looked up is controllable externally. The key may be a hidden field in the HTML form field, might be passed as a URL parameter or as an unencrypted cookie variable, then in each of these cases it will be possible to tamper with the key value. One manifestation of this weakness is when a system uses sequential or otherwise easily-guessable session IDs that would allow one user to easily switch to another user’s session and read/modify their data.