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Bypassing Brute Force Protection via Application Crash and In-Memory Data Loss

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Mar 18, 2024 in argoproj/argo-cd • Updated Mar 22, 2024

Package

gomod github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/v2 (Go)

Affected versions

< 2.8.13
>= 2.9.0, < 2.9.9
>= 2.10.0, < 2.10.4

Patched versions

2.8.13
2.9.9
2.10.4

Description

Summary

An attacker can exploit a chain of vulnerabilities, including a Denial of Service (DoS) flaw and in-memory data storage weakness, to effectively bypass the application's brute force login protection. This makes the application susceptible to brute force attacks, compromising the security of all user accounts.

Details

The issue arises from two main vulnerabilities:

  1. The application crashes due to a previously described DoS vulnerability caused by unsafe array modifications in a multi-threaded environment.
  2. The application saves the data of failed login attempts in-memory, without persistent storage. When the application crashes and restarts, this data is lost, resetting the brute force protections.
// LoginAttempts is a timestamped counter for failed login attempts

type LoginAttempts struct {  
// Time of the last failed login LastFailed time.Time `json:"lastFailed"` // Number of consecutive login failures FailCount int `json:"failCount"`

}

By chaining these vulnerabilities, an attacker can circumvent the limitations placed on the number of login attempts.

PoC

  1. Run the provided PoC script.
  2. Observe that the script makes 6 login attempts, one more than the set limit of 5 failed attempts.
  3. This is made possible because the script triggers a server restart via the DoS vulnerability after 5 failed attempts, thus resetting the counter for failed login attempts.

Impact

This is a critical security vulnerability that allows attackers to bypass the brute force login protection mechanism. Not only can they crash the service affecting all users, but they can also make unlimited login attempts, increasing the risk of account compromise.

References

@crenshaw-dev crenshaw-dev published to argoproj/argo-cd Mar 18, 2024
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Mar 18, 2024
Reviewed Mar 18, 2024
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Mar 18, 2024
Last updated Mar 22, 2024

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

EPSS score

0.043%
(10th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2024-21652

GHSA ID

GHSA-x32m-mvfj-52xv

Source code

Credits

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