HexBrain

Ruby on Rails · Report #1106652

redirect_to(["string"]) remote code execution

Validstatus
lowseverity
9upvotes
7 May 2021disclosed

Summary

Impact There is a possible information disclosure / unintended method execution vulnerability in Action Pack when using the redirect_to or polymorphic_url helper with untrusted user input.

Vulnerable code will look like this.

redirect_to(params[:some_param]) All users running an affected release should either upgrade or use one of the workarounds immediately.

Releases The FIXED releases are available at the normal locations.

Workarounds To work around this problem, it is recommended to use an allow list for valid parameters passed from the user. For example,

private def check(param) case param when "valid" param else "/" end end

def index redirect_to(check(params[:some_param])) end Or force the user input to be cast to a string like this,

def index redirect_to(params[:some_param].to_s) end Patches To aid users who aren't able to upgrade immediately we have provided patches for the two supported release series. They are in git-am format and consist of a single changeset.

5-2-information-disclosure.patch - Patch for 5.2 series 6-0-information-disclosure.patch - Patch for 6.0 series 6-1-information-disclosure.patch - Patch for 6.1 series Please note that only the 5.2, 6.0, and 6.1 series are supported at present. Users of earlier unsupported releases are advised to upgrade as soon as possible as we cannot guarantee the continued availability of security fixes for unsupported releases.

Credits Thanks to Benoit Côté-Jodoin from Shopify for reporting this.

References https://github.com/rails/rails/releases/tag/v5.2.4.6 https://github.com/rails/rails/releases/tag/v5.2.6 https://github.com/rails/rails/releases/tag/v6.0.3.7 https://github.com/rails/rails/releases/tag/v6.1.3.2 https://groups.google.com/g/rubyonrails-security/c/NiQl-48cXYI

How it was found

For example, redirect_to(params[:user_input]) with a URL of ?user_input[]=something calls the method something_url and tries to redirect the return value of the method. If this call is on an unauthenticated route, it would allow an external user to test if a route name exists by determining if the app 500s (the method does not exist) or successfully redirects.

Impact

Any public method defined on a controller ending with _url could be remotely executed.

This report was disclosed publicly on HackerOne and belongs to its author and the program. See the original