CVE-2024-25108

Pixelfed is an open source photo sharing platform. When processing requests authorization was improperly and insufficiently checked, allowing attackers to access far more functionality than users intended, including to the administrative and moderator functionality of the Pixelfed server. This vulnerability affects every version of Pixelfed between v0.10.4 and v0.11.9, inclusive. A proof of concept of this vulnerability exists. This vulnerability affects every local user of a Pixelfed server, and can potentially affect the servers ability to federate. Some user interaction is required to setup the conditions to be able to exercise the vulnerability, but the attacker could conduct this attack time-delayed manner, where user interaction is not actively required. This vulnerability has been addressed in version 0.11.11. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

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/pixelfed/pixelfed/commit/7e47d6dccb0393a2e95c42813c562c854882b037
• https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/security/advisories/GHSA-gccq-h3xj-jgvf