Bug 892866 (CVE-2013-0155)

Damien Mathieu (42) reports:

Unsafe Query Generation Risk in Ruby on Rails

There is a vulnerability when Active Record is used in conjunction with JSON 
parameter parsing. This vulnerability has been assigned the CVE identifier 
CVE-2013-0155.

Versions Affected:  3.x series
Not affected:       2.x series
Fixed Versions:     3.2.11, 3.1.10, 3.0.19

Impact
------

Due to the way Active Record interprets parameters in combination with the way
that JSON parameters are parsed, it is possible for an attacker to issue 
unexpected database queries with "IS NULL" or empty where clauses.  This issue 
does *not* let an attacker insert arbitrary values into an SQL query, however 
they can cause the query to check for NULL or eliminate a WHERE clause when 
most users wouldn't expect it.

For example, a system has password reset with token functionality:

    unless params[:token].nil?
      user = User.find_by_token(params[:token])
      user.reset_password!
    end

An attacker can craft a request such that `params[:token]` will return `[nil]`.
The `[nil]` value will bypass the test for nil, but will still add an 
"IN ('xyz', NULL)" clause to the SQL query.

Similarly, an attacker can craft a request such that `params[:token]` will 
return an empty hash.  An empty hash will eliminate the WHERE clause of the 
query, but can bypass the `nil?` check.

Note that this impacts not only dynamic finders (`find_by_*`) but also 
relations (`User.where(:name => params[:name])`).

All users running an affected release should either upgrade or use one of the 
work arounds immediately. All users running an affected release should upgrade
immediately. Please note, this vulnerability is a variant of CVE-2012-2660, 
and CVE-2012-2694.  Even if you upgraded to address those issues, you must 
take action again.

If this chance in behavior impacts your application, you can manually decode 
the original values from the request like so:

    ActiveSupport::JSON.decode(request.body)

Releases
--------
The FIXED releases are available at the normal locations.

Workarounds
-----------
This problem can be mitigated by casting the parameter to a string before 
passing it to Active Record.  For example:

    unless params[:token].nil? || params[:token].to_s.empty?
      user = User.find_by_token(params[:token].to_s)
      user.reset_password!
    end
An attacker can craft a request such that `params[:token]` will return `[nil]`.
The `[nil]` value will bypass the test for nil, but will still add an 
"IN ('xyz', NULL)" clause to the SQL query.

Similarly, an attacker can craft a request such that `params[:token]` will 
return an empty hash.  An empty hash will eliminate the WHERE clause of the 
query, but can bypass the `nil?` check.

Note that this impacts not only dynamic finders (`find_by_*`) but also 
relations (`User.where(:name => params[:name])`).

All users running an affected release should either upgrade or use one of the 
work arounds immediately. All users running an affected release should upgrade
immediately. Please note, this vulnerability is a variant of CVE-2012-2660, 
and CVE-2012-2694.  Even if you upgraded to address those issues, you must 
take action again.

If this chance in behavior impacts your application, you can manually decode 
the original values from the request like so:

    ActiveSupport::JSON.decode(request.body)

Releases
--------
The FIXED releases are available at the normal locations.

Workarounds
-----------
This problem can be mitigated by casting the parameter to a string before 
passing it to Active Record.  For example:

    unless params[:token].nil? || params[:token].to_s.empty?
      user = User.find_by_token(params[:token].to_s)
      user.reset_password!
    end

Note the parameter is still cast to a string before being sent to Active 
Record. This is because an array with a nil value can still bypass the 
`to_s.empty?` test:

    >> ['xyz', nil].to_s
    => "xyz"
    >> ['xyz', nil].to_s.empty?
    => false