others edit pages in your wiki, then some possible security issues do need
to be kept in mind.
+[[!toc levels=2]]
+
----
# Probable holes
Anyone with direct commit access can forge "web commit from foo" and
make it appear on [[RecentChanges]] like foo committed. One way to avoid
-this would be to limit web commits to those done by a certian user.
+this would be to limit web commits to those done by a certain user.
## other stuff to look at
-I need to audit the git backend a bit, and have been meaning to
-see if any CRLF injection type things can be done in the CGI code.
+I have been meaning to see if any CRLF injection type things can be
+done in the CGI code.
----
Of course nobody else seems to worry about this in other wikis, so should we?
-Currently only people with direct svn commit access can upload such files
-(and if you wanted to you could block that with a svn pre-commit hook).
-Users with only web commit access are limited to editing pages as ikiwiki
-doesn't support file uploads from browsers (yet), so they can't exploit
-this.
+People with direct commit access can upload such files
+(and if you wanted to you could block that with a pre-commit hook).
+
+The attachments plugin is not enabled by default. If you choose to
+enable it, you should make use of its powerful abilities to filter allowed
+types of attachments, and only let trusted users upload.
+
+It is possible to embed an image in a page edited over the web, by using
+`img src="data:image/png;"`. Ikiwiki's htmlscrubber only allows `data:`
+urls to be used for `image/*` mime types. It's possible that some broken
+browser might ignore the mime type and if the data provided is not an
+image, instead run it as javascript, or something evil like that. Hopefully
+not many browsers are that broken.
## multiple accessors of wiki directory
-If multiple people can write to the source directory ikiwiki is using, or
-to the destination directory it writes files to, then one can cause trouble
-for the other when they run ikiwiki through symlink attacks.
+If multiple people can directly write to the source directory ikiwiki is
+using, or to the destination directory it writes files to, then one can
+cause trouble for the other when they run ikiwiki through symlink attacks.
-So it's best if only one person can ever write to those directories.
+So it's best if only one person can ever directly write to those directories.
## setup files
-Setup files are not safe to keep in subversion with the rest of the wiki.
-Just don't do it. [[ikiwiki.setup]] is *not* used as the setup file for
-this wiki, BTW.
+Setup files are not safe to keep in the same revision control repository
+with the rest of the wiki. Just don't do it.
-## page locking can be bypassed via direct svn commits
+## page locking can be bypassed via direct commits
-A locked page can only be edited on the web by an admin, but
-anyone who is allowed to commit direct to svn can bypass this. This is by
-design, although a subversion pre-commit hook could be used to prevent
-editing of locked pages when using subversion, if you really need to.
+A locked page can only be edited on the web by an admin, but anyone who is
+allowed to commit directly to the repository can bypass this. This is by
+design, although a pre-commit hook could be used to prevent editing of
+locked pages, if you really need to.
## web server attacks
_(AKA, the assumptions that will be the root of most security holes...)_
-## exploting ikiwiki with bad content
+## exploiting ikiwiki with bad content
Someone could add bad content to the wiki and hope to exploit ikiwiki.
Note that ikiwiki runs with perl taint checks on, so this is unlikely.
## suid wrappers
-ikiwiki --wrapper is intended to generate a wrapper program that
+`ikiwiki --wrapper` is intended to generate a wrapper program that
runs ikiwiki to update a given wiki. The wrapper can in turn be made suid,
for example to be used in a [[post-commit]] hook by people who cannot write
to the html pages, etc.
-If the wrapper script is made suid, then any bugs in this wrapper would be
+If the wrapper program is made suid, then any bugs in this wrapper would be
security holes. The wrapper is written as securely as I know how, is based
on code that has a history of security use long before ikiwiki, and there's
been no problem yet.
## shell exploits
ikiwiki does not expose untrusted data to the shell. In fact it doesn't use
-system() at all, and the only use of backticks is on data supplied by the
-wiki admin and untainted filenames. And it runs with taint checks on of
-course..
+`system(3)` at all, and the only use of backticks is on data supplied by the
+wiki admin and untainted filenames.
+
+Ikiwiki was developed and used for a long time with perl's taint checking
+turned on as a second layer of defense against shell and other exploits. Due
+to a strange [bug](http://bugs.debian.org/411786) in perl, taint checking
+is currently disabled for production builds of ikiwiki.
## cgi data security
editing of ../../../foo, or editing of files that are not part of the wiki,
such as subversion dotfiles. This is done by sanitising the filename
removing unallowed characters, then making sure it doesn't start with "/"
-or contain ".." or "/.svn/". Annoyingly ad-hoc, this kind of code is where
-security holes breed. It needs a test suite at the very least.
+or contain ".." or "/.svn/", etc. Annoyingly ad-hoc, this kind of code is
+where security holes breed. It needs a test suite at the very least.
## CGI::Session security
## cgi password security
-Login to the wiki involves sending a password in cleartext over the net.
-Cracking the password only allows editing the wiki as that user though.
-If you care, you can use https, I suppose. If you do use https either for
-all of the wiki, or just the cgi access, then consider using the sslcookie
-option.
+Login to the wiki using [[plugins/passwordauth]] involves sending a password
+in cleartext over the net. Cracking the password only allows editing the wiki
+as that user though. If you care, you can use https, I suppose. If you do use
+https either for all of the wiki, or just the cgi access, then consider using
+the sslcookie option. Using [[plugins/openid]] is a potentially better option.
## XSS holes in CGI output
-ikiwiki has not yet been audited to ensure that all cgi script input/output
+ikiwiki has been audited to ensure that all cgi script input/output
is sanitised to prevent XSS attacks. For example, a user can't register
with a username containing html code (anymore).
## HTML::Template security
-If the [[plugins/template]] plugin is enabled, users can modify templates
-like any other part of the wiki. This assumes that HTML::Template is secure
+If the [[plugins/template]] plugin is enabled, all users can modify templates
+like any other part of the wiki. Some trusted users can modify templates
+without it too. This assumes that HTML::Template is secure
when used with untrusted/malicious templates. (Note that includes are not
-allowed, so that's not a problem.)
+allowed.)
+
+----
+
+# Plugins
+
+The security of [[plugins]] depends on how well they're written and what
+external tools they use. The plugins included in ikiwiki are all held to
+the same standards as the rest of ikiwiki, but with that said, here are
+some security notes for them.
+
+* The [[plugins/img]] plugin assumes that imagemagick/perlmagick are secure
+ from malformed image attacks. Imagemagick has had security holes in the
+ past. To be able to exploit such a hole, a user would need to be able to
+ upload images to the wiki.
----
To avoid this, ikiwiki will skip over symlinks when scanning for pages, and
uses locking to prevent more than one instance running at a time. The lock
-prevents one ikiwiki from running a svn up at the wrong time to race
-another ikiwiki. So only attackers who can write to the working copy on
-their own can race it.
+prevents one ikiwiki from running a svn up/git pull/etc at the wrong time
+to race another ikiwiki. So only attackers who can write to the working
+copy on their own can race it.
## symlink + cgi attacks
-Similarly, a svn commit of a symlink could be made, ikiwiki ignores it
+Similarly, a commit of a symlink could be made, ikiwiki ignores it
because of the above, but the symlink is still there, and then you edit the
page from the web, which follows the symlink when reading the page
(exposing the content), and again when saving the changed page (changing
be exploited to DOS the wiki, by causing a loop. Ikiwiki has always guarded
against this one way or another; the current solution should detect all
types of loops involving preprocessor directives.
+
+## Online editing of existing css and images
+
+A bug in ikiwiki allowed the web-based editor to edit any file that was in
+the wiki, not just files that are page sources. So an attacker (or a
+genuinely helpful user, which is how the hole came to light) could edit
+files like style.css. It is also theoretically possible that an attacker
+could have used this hole to edit images or other files in the wiki, with
+some difficulty, since all editing would happen in a textarea.
+
+This hole was discovered on 10 Feb 2007 and fixed the same day with the
+release of ikiwiki 1.42. A fix was also backported to Debian etch, as
+version 1.33.1. I recommend upgrading to one of these versions if your wiki
+allows web editing.
+
+## html insertion via title
+
+Missing html escaping of the title contents allowed a web-based editor to
+insert arbitrary html inside the title tag of a page. Since that part of
+the page is not processed by the htmlscrubber, evil html could be injected.
+
+This hole was discovered on 21 March 2007 and fixed the same day (er, hour)
+with the release of ikiwiki 1.46. A fix was also backported to Debian etch,
+as version 1.33.2. I recommend upgrading to one of these versions if your
+wiki allows web editing or aggregates feeds.
+
+## javascript insertion via meta tags
+
+It was possible to use the meta plugin's meta tags to insert arbitrary
+url contents, which could be used to insert stylesheet information
+containing javascript. This was fixed by sanitising meta tags.
+
+This hole was discovered on 21 March 2007 and fixed the same day
+with the release of ikiwiki 1.47. A fix was also backported to Debian etch,
+as version 1.33.3. I recommend upgrading to one of these versions if your
+wiki can be edited by third parties.
+
+## insufficient checking for symlinks in srcdir path
+
+Ikiwiki did not check if path to the srcdir to contained a symlink. If an
+attacker had commit access to the directories in the path, they could
+change it to a symlink, causing ikiwiki to read and publish files that were
+not intended to be published. (But not write to them due to other checks.)
+
+In most configurations, this is not exploitable, because the srcdir is
+checked out of revision control, but the directories leading up to it are
+not. Or, the srcdir is a single subdirectory of a project in revision
+control (ie, `ikiwiki/doc`), and if the subdirectory were a symlink,
+ikiwiki would still typically not follow it.
+
+There are at least two configurations where this is exploitable:
+
+* If the srcdir is a deeper subdirectory of a project. For example if it is
+ `project/foo/doc`, an an attacker can replace `foo` with a symlink to a
+ directory containing a `doc` directory (not a symlink), then ikiwiki
+ would follow the symlink.
+* If the path to the srcdir in ikiwiki's configuration ended in "/",
+ and the srcdir is a single subdirectory of a project, (ie,
+ `ikiwiki/doc/`), the srcdir could be a symlink and ikiwiki would not
+ notice.
+
+This security hole was discovered on 26 November 2007 and fixed the same
+day with the release of ikiwiki 2.14. I recommend upgrading to this version
+if your wiki can be committed to by third parties. Alternatively, don't use
+a trailing slash in the srcdir, and avoid the (unusual) configurations that
+allow the security hole to be exploited.
+
+## javascript insertion via uris
+
+The htmlscrubber did not block javascript in uris. This was fixed by adding
+a whitelist of valid uri types, which does not include javascript.
+([[!cve CVE-2008-0809]]) Some urls specifyable by the meta plugin could also
+theoretically have been used to inject javascript; this was also blocked
+([[!cve CVE-2008-0808]]).
+
+This hole was discovered on 10 February 2008 and fixed the same day
+with the release of ikiwiki 2.31.1. (And a few subsequent versions..)
+A fix was also backported to Debian etch, as version 1.33.4. I recommend
+upgrading to one of these versions if your wiki can be edited by third
+parties.
+
+## Cross Site Request Forging
+
+Cross Site Request Forging could be used to constuct a link that would
+change a logged-in user's password or other preferences if they clicked on
+the link. It could also be used to construct a link that would cause a wiki
+page to be modified by a logged-in user. ([[!cve CVE-2008-0165]])
+
+These holes were discovered on 10 April 2008 and fixed the same day with
+the release of ikiwiki 2.42. A fix was also backported to Debian etch, as
+version 1.33.5. I recommend upgrading to one of these versions.
+
+## Cleartext passwords
+
+Until version 2.48, ikiwiki stored passwords in cleartext in the `userdb`.
+That risks exposing all users' passwords if the file is somehow exposed. To
+pre-emtively guard against that, current versions of ikiwiki store password
+hashes (using Eksblowfish).
+
+If you use the [[plugins/passwordauth]] plugin, I recommend upgrading to
+ikiwiki 2.48, installing the [[!cpan Authen::Passphrase]] perl module, and running
+`ikiwiki-transition hashpassword` to replace all existing cleartext passwords
+with strong blowfish hashes.
+
+You might also consider changing to [[plugins/openid]], which does not
+require ikiwiki deal with passwords at all, and does not involve users sending
+passwords in cleartext over the net to log in, either.
+
+## Empty password security hole
+
+This hole allowed ikiwiki to accept logins using empty passwords, to openid
+accounts that didn't use a password. It was introduced in version 1.34, and
+fixed in version 2.48. The [bug](http://bugs.debian.org/483770) was
+discovered on 30 May 2008 and fixed the same day. ([[!cve CVE-2008-0169]])
+
+I recommend upgrading to 2.48 immediatly if your wiki allows both password
+and openid logins.
+
+## Malformed UTF-8 DOS
+
+Feeding ikiwiki page sources containing certian forms of malformed UTF-8
+can cause it to crash. This can potentially be used for a denial of service
+attack.
+
+intrigeri discovered this problem on 12 Nov 2008 and a patch put in place
+later that day, in version 2.70. The fix was backported to testing as version
+2.53.3, and to stable as version 1.33.7.
+
+## Insufficient blacklisting in teximg plugin
+
+Josh Triplett discovered on 28 Aug 2009 that the teximg plugin's
+blacklisting of insecure TeX commands was insufficient; it could be
+bypassed and used to read arbitrary files. This was fixed by
+enabling TeX configuration options that disallow unsafe TeX commands.
+The fix was released on 30 Aug 2009 in version 3.1415926, and was
+backported to stable in version 2.53.4. If you use the teximg plugin,
+I recommend upgrading. ([[!cve CVE-2009-2944]])
+
+## javascript insertion via svg uris
+
+Ivan Shmakov pointed out that the htmlscrubber allowed `data:image/*` urls,
+including `data:image/svg+xml`. But svg can contain javascript, so that is
+unsafe.
+
+This hole was discovered on 12 March 2010 and fixed the same day
+with the release of ikiwiki 3.20100312.
+A fix was also backported to Debian etch, as version 2.53.5. I recommend
+upgrading to one of these versions if your wiki can be edited by third
+parties.
+
+## javascript insertion via insufficient htmlscrubbing of comments
+
+Kevin Riggle noticed that it was not possible to configure
+`htmlscrubber_skip` to scrub comments while leaving unscubbed the text
+of eg, blog posts. Confusingly, setting it to "* and !comment(*)" did not
+scrub comments.
+
+Additionally, it was discovered that comments' html was never scrubbed during
+preview or moderation of comments with such a configuration.
+
+These problems were discovered on 12 November 2010 and fixed the same
+hour with the release of ikiwiki 3.20101112. ([[!cve CVE-2010-1673]])
+
+## javascript insertion via insufficient checking in comments
+
+Dave B noticed that attempting to comment on an illegal page name could be
+used for an XSS attack.
+
+This hole was discovered on 22 Jan 2011 and fixed the same day with
+the release of ikiwiki 3.20110122. A fix was backported to Debian squeeze,
+as version 3.20100815.5. An upgrade is recommended for sites
+with the comments plugin enabled. ([[!cve CVE-2011-0428]])
+
+## possible javascript insertion via insufficient htmlscrubbing of alternate stylesheets
+
+Giuseppe Bilotta noticed that 'meta stylesheet` directives allowed anyone
+who could upload a malicious stylesheet to a site to add it to a
+page as an alternate stylesheet, or replacing the default stylesheet.
+
+This hole was discovered on 28 Mar 2011 and fixed the same hour with
+the release of ikiwiki 3.20110328. A fix was backported to Debian squeeze,
+as version 3.20100815.6. An upgrade is recommended for sites that have
+untrusted committers, or have the attachments plugin enabled.
+([[!cve CVE-2011-1401]])
+
+## tty hijacking via ikiwiki-mass-rebuild
+
+Ludwig Nussel discovered a way for users to hijack root's tty when
+ikiwiki-mass-rebuild was run. Additionally, there was some potential
+for information disclosure via symlinks. ([[!cve CVE-2011-1408]])
+
+This hole was discovered on 8 June 2011 and fixed the same day with
+the release of ikiwiki 3.20110608. Note that the fix is dependant on
+a version of su that has a similar hole fixed. Version 4.1.5 of the shadow
+package contains the fixed su; [[!debbug 628843]] tracks fixing the hole in
+Debian. An upgrade is a must for any sites that have `ikiwiki-update-wikilist`
+installed suid (not the default), and whose admins run `ikiwiki-mass-rebuild`.
+
+## javascript insertion via meta tags
+
+Raúl Benencia discovered an additional XSS exposure in the meta plugin.
+([[!cve CVE-2012-0220]])
+
+This hole was discovered on 16 May 2012 and fixed the same day with
+the release of ikiwiki 3.20120516. A fix was backported to Debian squeeze,
+as version 3.20100815.9. An upgrade is recommended for all sites.