Bug 1848563 (CVE-2020-7921) - CVE-2020-7921 mongodb: Improper serialization permits bypass of IP based authentication restrictions
Summary: CVE-2020-7921 mongodb: Improper serialization permits bypass of IP based auth...
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: CVE-2020-7921
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Red Hat Product Security
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On: 1852534 1852748 1852749 1852750
Blocks: 1848565
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2020-06-18 14:23 UTC by Marian Rehak
Modified: 2021-12-14 18:47 UTC (History)
29 users (show)

Fixed In Version: mongodb 3.6.18, mongodb 4.0.15, mongodb 4.2.3, mongodb 4.3.3
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
A vulnerability was discovered in MongoDB, where an update operation on a user-define role clears the authenticationRestrictions field that was previously set. This unexpected behavior may remove previous IP based restrictions configured on a role, thus allowing a user to bypass them once the update operation is performed.
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2021-10-28 10:13:32 UTC
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Marian Rehak 2020-06-18 14:23:59 UTC
Improper serialization of internal state in the authentication subsystem in MongoDB Server's permits a user with valid credentials to bypass authentication restrictions protection mechanisms as a result of administrative actions on one of the user's roles. This issue affects: MongoDB Inc. MongoDB Server 4.2 versions prior to 4.2.3; 4.0 versions prior to 4.0.15; 4.3 versions prior to 4.3.3; 3.6 versions prior to 3.6.18.

Upstream Reference:

https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-45472

Comment 1 Summer Long 2020-06-19 01:57:29 UTC
External References:

https://www.mongodb.com/alerts#security-related

Comment 4 Summer Long 2020-06-19 01:58:09 UTC
Mitigation:

There is no known mitigation for this issue, the flaw can only be resolved by applying updates.

Comment 5 Riccardo Schirone 2020-06-30 16:17:36 UTC
Created mongodb tracking bugs for this issue:

Affects: epel-all [bug 1852534]

Comment 11 Riccardo Schirone 2020-07-02 14:57:35 UTC
authenticationRestrictions is an authentication mechanism that can be defined in Roles, to limit the IP addresses a client can connect from/to. For example, if a user tries to connect from an address not specified in authenticationRestrictions.clientSource, the connection will be denied.

When an admin does some operations on a role with the authenticationRestrictions field set, the authenticationRestrictions value is not correctly serialized and it can be cleared. For example, by updating another field of a given role (e.g. privileges field) according to the documentation only that field should be replaced. However, due to this flaw the authenticationRestrictions field becomes empty, allowing an user with this role to effectively bypass the original intention of the admin.

Comment 12 Riccardo Schirone 2020-07-02 19:28:33 UTC
This flaw is only relevant if authenticationRestrictions field on a user-defined role is defined and the mongod server is not bound to localhost only. By default, Red Hat Software Collections MongoDB is configured to listen on localhost only (127.0.0.1) thus only users on the local machine can connect to the MongoDB server. Moreover, the user-defined role must be updated to trigger the vulnerable behaviour which disables the authenticationRestrictions mechanism. An attacker cannot bypass the authentication until a user with the proper privileges update the role.

Comment 13 Riccardo Schirone 2020-07-02 19:30:01 UTC
Statement:

Red Hat Satellite 6.6 onward does not ship the MongoDB package; however, the product consumes MongoDB from Red Hat Software Collections (RHSCL) for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Satellite has no plans to update to a version of MongoDB released with a Server Side Public License (SSPL) which includes all versions released after October 16, 2018. Refer to this article for more information: https://access.redhat.com/articles/5767021

This issue did not affect the versions of mongodb as shipped with Red Hat Update Infrastructure 3 as they did not include support for authenticationRestrictions field in roles.

Comment 14 Riccardo Schirone 2020-07-02 19:30:24 UTC
authenticationRestrictions field was added in MongoDB upstream version 3.6.

Comment 15 Patrik Novotný 2020-07-07 10:31:47 UTC
The upstream patch is licensed under the SSPL license, which is not compatible with our licensing requirements. Therefore, the patch cannot be applied.

Closing as WONTFIX.

Comment 16 Patrik Novotný 2020-07-07 13:21:19 UTC
I've managed to close wrong bug. Sorry about that! Reopening..


Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.