CVE-2014-8144 in Doorkeeper
Summary
by MITRE
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in doorkeeper before 1.4.1 allows remote attackers to hijack the authentication of unspecified victims for requests that read a user OAuth authorization code via unknown vectors.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/21/2018
The CVE-2014-8144 vulnerability represents a critical cross-site request forgery flaw within the doorkeeper OAuth2 library version 1.4.0 and earlier. This vulnerability specifically targets the authentication mechanism of OAuth2 implementations, creating a pathway for remote attackers to exploit user sessions and gain unauthorized access to sensitive authorization codes. The issue stems from inadequate validation of request origins and lack of proper CSRF token implementation within the authorization flow, allowing malicious actors to craft forged requests that appear legitimate to the target application. The vulnerability affects applications using doorkeeper as their OAuth2 provider, particularly those that rely on the library for handling user authorization and token issuance processes.
The technical flaw manifests in the absence of robust origin validation and CSRF protection mechanisms within the OAuth2 authorization endpoint. When users are authenticated and navigate to the authorization page, the doorkeeper library fails to properly verify that incoming requests originate from legitimate sources within the same domain. This weakness enables attackers to construct malicious web pages or exploit existing vulnerabilities in web applications that interact with the doorkeeper service. The unauthorized access specifically targets the OAuth authorization code retrieval process, which serves as a critical component in the OAuth2 authorization flow where users grant permission for applications to access their resources. The vulnerability's impact extends beyond simple session hijacking, as the authorization code itself can be used to obtain access tokens, potentially granting full access to user resources and data.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is significant for organizations relying on doorkeeper for OAuth2 authentication. Attackers could leverage this flaw to impersonate legitimate users and access protected resources without proper authorization, potentially leading to data breaches, unauthorized transactions, and compromised user accounts. The vulnerability particularly affects web applications that use doorkeeper as their OAuth2 provider and have not implemented additional CSRF protection measures. The unspecified nature of victim targets indicates that any user session within the vulnerable application could be compromised, making this a broad-spectrum threat. Organizations using doorkeeper versions prior to 1.4.1 face substantial risk as attackers can exploit this vulnerability through various means including social engineering, malicious websites, or by leveraging other vulnerabilities in the application stack to deliver forged requests.
Security practitioners should prioritize upgrading to doorkeeper version 1.4.1 or later, which includes proper CSRF token implementation and origin validation. Additional mitigations include implementing Content Security Policy headers, enforcing strict referrer policies, and deploying additional application-level protections such as custom CSRF token validation. Organizations should also conduct thorough security audits of their OAuth2 implementations to identify and remediate similar vulnerabilities in other components. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses cross-site request forgery weaknesses, and corresponds to ATT&CK technique T1566.001 for credential access through social engineering. This vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of proper input validation and authentication flow protection in OAuth2 implementations, highlighting the need for comprehensive security testing of identity and access management systems.