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Harbor timing attack risk

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Oct 8, 2023 in goharbor/harbor • Updated Nov 16, 2023

Package

gomod github.com/goharbor/harbor (Go)

Affected versions

< 1.10.18
>= 2.0.0, < 2.7.3
>= 2.8.0, < 2.8.3

Patched versions

1.10.18
2.7.3
2.8.3

Description

In the Harbor jobservice container, the comparison of secrets in the authenticator type is prone to timing attacks. The vulnerability occurs due to the following code: https://github.com/goharbor/harbor/blob/aaea068cceb4063ab89313d9785f2b40f35b0d63/src/jobservice/api/authenticator.go#L69-L69
To avoid this issue, constant time comparison should be used.

subtle.ConstantTimeCompare([]byte(expectedSecret), []byte(secret)) == 0

Impact

This attack might be possible theoretically, but no workable proof of concept is available, and access complexity is set at High.
The jobservice exposes these APIs

Create a job task --- POST /api/v1/jobs    
Get job task information --- GET /api/v1/jobs/{job_id}
Stop job task ---  POST /api/v1/jobs/{job_id}
Get job log task ---  GET /api/v1/jobs/{job_id}/log
Get job execution --- GET /api/v1/jobs/{job_id}/executions
Get job stats ---  GET /api/v1/stats
Get job service configuration ---  GET /api/v1/config

It is used to create jobs/stop job tasks and retrieve job task information. If an attacker obtains the secrets, it is possible to retrieve the job information, create a job, or stop a job task.

The following versions of Harbor are involved:
<=Harbor 2.8.2, <=Harbor 2.7.2, <= Harbor 2.6.x, <=Harbor 1.10.17

Patches

Harbor 2.8.3, Harbor 2.7.3, Harbor 1.10.18

Workarounds

Because the jobservice only exposes HTTP service to harbor-core containers, blocking any inbound traffic from the external network to the jobservice container can reduce the risk.

Credits

Thanks to Porcupiney Hairs for reporting this issue.

References

@stonezdj stonezdj published to goharbor/harbor Oct 8, 2023
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Oct 10, 2023
Reviewed Oct 10, 2023
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Nov 9, 2023
Last updated Nov 16, 2023

Severity

Moderate
5.9
/ 10

CVSS base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

CVE ID

CVE-2023-20902

GHSA ID

GHSA-mq6f-5xh5-hgcf

Source code

Checking history
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