InvoicePlane is a self-hosted open source application for managing invoices, clients, and payments. In version 1.7.2, an authorization guard to Users::change_password(), was added to address a previous authorization flaw that allowed a secondary administrator (user_type=1, user_id != 1) to directly change the password of the primary administrator (user_id=1) through users/change_password/{id}. That remediation, however, protects only the direct password-change operation. It does not protect the identity attribute that password recovery actually trusts: user_email. Users::form() applies no equivalent object-level authorization check when editing the primary administrators account, and user_email is not included in PROTECTED_FIELDS. A secondary administrator can therefore rewrite the primary administrators email address, then drive the public password-recovery flow — which resolves the account by user_email — to receive the reset token and take over user_id=1. The result is an alternate attack path that achieves the same impact PR #1638 was intended to prevent: cross-administrator full account takeover of the primary administrator. This issue has been patched via commit 8616fa4.
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.
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/InvoicePlane/InvoicePlane/commit/8616fa45a61c1694b55bb9116e293269a0ced06a
- https://github.com/InvoicePlane/InvoicePlane/pull/1638
- https://github.com/InvoicePlane/InvoicePlane/security/advisories/GHSA-77hm-22wp-96wp
- https://github.com/InvoicePlane/InvoicePlane/security/advisories/GHSA-77hm-22wp-96wp