HedgeDoc up to 1.9.8 API authentication by alternate name

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability identified as problematic has been detected in HedgeDoc up to 1.9.8. Affected is an unknown function of the component API. The manipulation leads to authentication by alternate name. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2023-38487. The attack is possible to be carried out remotely. No exploit exists. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in HedgeDoc up to 1.9.8 and classified as problematic. This issue affects some unknown functionality of the component API. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a authentication by alternate name vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-289. The product performs authentication based on the name of a resource being accessed, or the name of the actor performing the access, but it does not properly check all possible names for that resource or actor. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

HedgeDoc is software for creating real-time collaborative markdown notes. Prior to version 1.9.9, the API of HedgeDoc 1 can be used to create notes with an alias matching the ID of existing notes. The affected existing note can then not be accessed anymore and is effectively hidden by the new one. When the freeURL feature is enabled (by setting the `allowFreeURL` config option or the `CMD_ALLOW_FREEURL` environment variable to `true`), any user with the appropriate permissions can create a note by making a POST request to the `/new/` API endpoint. The `` parameter can be set to the ID of an existing note. HedgeDoc did not verify whether the provided `` value corresponds to a valid ID of an existing note and always allowed creation of the new note. When a visitor tried to access the existing note, HedgeDoc will first search for a note with a matching alias before it searches using the ID, therefore only the new note can be accessed. Depending on the permission settings of the HedgeDoc instance, the issue can be exploited only by logged-in users or by all (including non-logged-in) users. The exploit requires knowledge of the ID of the target note. Attackers could use this issue to present a manipulated copy of the original note to the user, e.g. by replacing the links with malicious ones. Attackers can also use this issue to prevent access to the original note, causing a denial of service. No data is lost, as the original content of the affected notes is still present in the database. This issue was fixed in version 1.9.9. As a workaround, disabling freeURL mode prevents the exploitation of this issue. The impact can be limited by restricting freeURL note creation to trusted, logged-in users by enabling `requireFreeURLAuthentication`/`CMD_REQUIRE_FREEURL_AUTHENTICATION`.

The weakness was disclosed 08/04/2023 as GHSA-7494-7hcf-vxpg. It is possible to read the advisory at github.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2023-38487 since 07/18/2023. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available.

Upgrading to version 1.9.9 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying a patch is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at github.com. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

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Productinfo

Name

• HedgeDoc

Version

• 1.9.0
• 1.9.1
• 1.9.2
• 1.9.3
• 1.9.4
• 1.9.5
• 1.9.6
• 1.9.7
• 1.9.8

Website

• Product: https://github.com/hedgedoc/hedgedoc/

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