Vela is a Pipeline Automation (CI/CD) framework built on Linux container technology written in Golang. Vela pipelines can use variable substitution combined with insensitive fields like parameters, image and entrypoint to inject secrets into a plugin/image and — by using common substitution string manipulation — can bypass log masking and expose secrets without the use of the commands block. This unexpected behavior primarily impacts secrets restricted by the no commands option. This can lead to unintended use of the secret value, and increased risk of exposing the secret during image execution bypassing log masking. To exploit this the pipeline author must be supplying the secrets to a plugin that is designed in such a way that will print those parameters in logs. Plugin parameters are not designed for sensitive values and are often intentionally printed throughout execution for informational/debugging purposes. Parameters should therefore be treated as insensitive. While Vela provides secrets masking, secrets exposure is not entirely solved by the masking process. A docker image (plugin) can easily expose secrets if they are not handled properly, or altered in some way. There is a responsibility on the end-user to understand how values injected into a plugin are used. This is a risk that exists for many CICD systems (like GitHub Actions) that handle sensitive runtime variables. Rather, the greater risk is that users who restrict a secret to the no commands option and use image restriction can still have their secret value exposed via substitution tinkering, which turns the image and command restrictions into a false sense of security. This issue has been addressed in version 0.23.2. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should not provide sensitive values to plugins that can potentially expose them, especially in parameters that are not intended to be used for sensitive values, ensure plugins (especially those that utilize shared secrets) follow best practices to avoid logging parameters that are expected to be sensitive, minimize secrets with pull_request events enabled, as this allows users to change pipeline configurations and pull in secrets to steps not typically part of the CI process, make use of the build approval setting, restricting builds from untrusted users, and limit use of shared secrets, as they are less restrictive to access by nature.
The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.
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.