Active Storage allowed transformation methods potentially unsafe

Active Storage attempts to prevent the use of potentially unsafe image transformation methods and parameters by default.

The default allowed list contains three methods allow for the circumvention of the safe defaults which enables potential command injection vulnerabilities in cases where arbitrary user supplied input is accepted as valid transformation methods or parameters.

Impact

This vulnerability impacts applications that use Active Storage with the image_processing processing gem in addition to mini_magick as the image processor.

Vulnerable code will look something similar to this:

1

<%= image_tag blob.variant(params[:t] => params[:v]) %>

Where the transformation method or its arguments are untrusted arbitrary input.

All users running an affected release should either upgrade or use one of the workarounds immediately.

Workarounds

Consuming user supplied input for image transformation methods or their parameters is unsupported behavior and should be considered dangerous.

Strict validation of user supplied methods and parameters should be performed as well as having a strong ImageMagick security policy deployed.

Credits

Thank you lio346 for reporting this!

Weakness

The product constructs all or part of a command using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended command when it is sent to a downstream component.

Affected Software

Extended Description

Many protocols and products have their own custom command language. While OS or shell command strings are frequently discovered and targeted, developers may not realize that these other command languages might also be vulnerable to attacks.

Potential Mitigations

• Assume all input is malicious. Use an “accept known good” input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
• When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, “boat” may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as “red” or “blue.”
• Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code’s environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/136.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/15.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/183.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/248.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/40.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/43.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/75.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/76.html

References

• https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-r4mg-4433-c7g3