HexBrain

Nextcloud · Report #1688199

Database resource exhaustion for logged-in users via sharee recommendations with circles

Validstatus
mediumseverity
$250bounty
13upvotes
26 Nov 2022disclosed

Summary

Security advisory at https://github.com/nextcloud/security-advisories/security/advisories/GHSA-wxx7-w5p4-7x4c

How it was found

Summary:

Registered users can generate massive database load

Steps To Reproduce:

  1. create 9 circles and 6 folders (circles * folder > 50)
  2. share all created folders with all created circles
  3. open an other folder and open the share tab, so the URI /ocs/v2.php/apps/files_sharing/api/v1/sharees_recommended is requested
  4. this requests results in a loop that runs as long as the php value max_execution_time is set; the recommended value for this is 3600 seconds (1h)
  5. a small number of these requests will stress even large servers

Tested with Nextcloud 23.0.8

Impact

Attacker slow down the system by generating a lot of database/cpu load.

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