fix: Protected field change detection oracle via LiveQuery watch parameter (GHSA-qpc3-fg4j-8hgm)

[mtrezza]

Issue

Protected field change detection oracle via LiveQuery watch parameter (GHSA-qpc3-fg4j-8hgm)

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[parseplatformorg]

✅ Snyk checks have passed. No issues have been found so far.

Status	Scan Engine	Critical	High	Medium	Low	Total (0)
✅	Open Source Security	0	0	0	0	0 issues

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[coderabbitai]

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

This PR enforces protected-field authorization for LiveQuery subscriptions by validating request.query.watch entries during subscribe-time. Subscriptions that attempt to watch protected fields (including dot-notation and nested paths) are rejected with Parse.Error.OPERATION_FORBIDDEN for non-master-key clients. Tests exercising these cases and allowed behaviors were added.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
LiveQuery server validation src/LiveQuery/ParseLiveQueryServer.ts	Added subscribe-time checks to _handleSubscribe to validate request.query.watch entries against class protectedFields; rejects subscriptions targeting protected fields (including root matches and dot-notated nested paths) with Parse.Error.OPERATION_FORBIDDEN when no master key is present.
LiveQuery protected-field tests spec/vulnerabilities.spec.js	Added LiveQuery test suite configuring SecretClass with protectedFields: { '*': ['secretObj'] }. Tests assert subscription rejection when watching secretObj, secretObj.apiKey, and secretObj.nested.deep.key; assert successful watch on publicField and that delivered update events omit protected data and do not emit updates for changes confined to unwatched protected fields.

Sequence Diagram(s)

mermaid
sequenceDiagram
participant Client as Client
participant LQ as LiveQuery Server
participant PS as Parse Server / Auth
participant DB as Database
Client->>LQ: subscribe(request:{where, watch})
LQ->>PS: validate request & check masterKey
PS-->>LQ: auth result (masterKey? / protectedFields)
alt watch contains protected field AND not masterKey
LQ-->>Client: error Parse.Error.OPERATION_FORBIDDEN ("Permission denied")
else allowed
LQ-->>Client: subscription acknowledged
DB-->>LQ: data change event
LQ->>LQ: filter out protected fields from payload
LQ-->>Client: update (with protected fields omitted)

Estimated code review effort

🎯 3 (Moderate) | ⏱️ ~20 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• fix: LiveQuery subscription with invalid regular expression crashes server (GHSA-827p-g5x5-h86c) #10197: Modifies LiveQuery subscribe handling and constraint/authorization logic in ParseLiveQueryServer; closely related to subscribe-time validation changes here.
• fix: Bypass of class-level permissions in LiveQuery (GHSA-7ch5-98q2-7289) #10133: Adds subscribe-time authorization checks in ParseLiveQueryServer; overlaps with protected-field validation introduced in this PR.
• fix: Protected fields bypass via LiveQuery subscription WHERE clause (GHSA-j7mm-f4rv-6q6q) #10175: Introduces protected-field enforcement for LiveQuery subscriptions (WHERE-clause focus), making it relevant to the watch-field restrictions added here.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 2 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Description check	⚠️ Warning	The pull request description is completely empty; no description was provided by the author, leaving required sections like Issue and Approach entirely unfilled.	Add a complete pull request description including the Issue section (referencing GHSA-qpc3-fg4j-8hgm), the Approach section explaining the protected field validation changes, and checked-off tasks.

✅ Passed checks (2 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly describes the main change: fixing a protected field change detection vulnerability via LiveQuery watch parameter enforcement, with specific CVE reference.

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 1

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against the current code and only fix it if needed.

Inline comments:
In `@spec/vulnerabilities.spec.js`:
- Around line 3739-3750: The test "should not deliver update event when only
non-watched public field changes" is inconsistent: it watches 'publicField' via
query.watch('publicField') but then calls obj.set('publicField', 'visible')
which is a no-op on the watched field; change the test body to modify a truly
non-watched field (e.g., obj.set('nonWatchedField', 'value') or a protected
field) or alternatively rename the test to reflect that it's doing a no-op
update on a watched field; update references to subscription and updateSpy
accordingly so the assertion expect(updateSpy).not.toHaveBeenCalled() matches
the corrected scenario.

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ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: b88d7f70-33f0-4b7b-9cea-90267c85bfb3

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 5fa7543 and 41bdd45.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• spec/vulnerabilities.spec.js
• src/LiveQuery/ParseLiveQueryServer.ts

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 92.54%. Comparing base (6c3317a) to head (99aba0f).
⚠️ Report is 3 commits behind head on alpha.

Additional details and impacted files

@@           Coverage Diff           @@
##            alpha   #10253   +/-   ##
=======================================
  Coverage   92.53%   92.54%           
=======================================
  Files         192      192           
  Lines       16394    16399    +5     
  Branches      219      221    +2     
=======================================
+ Hits        15171    15177    +6     
+ Misses       1204     1203    -1     
  Partials       19       19           

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[parseplatformorg]

🎉 This change has been released in version 9.6.0-alpha.43