Bug #14612
Pidgin exposes everything through its D-Bus service
100%
Description
See e.g.: https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/DbusHowto
So Tor Browser can totally sniff your buddy list and send your friends creepy messages.
Disabling this interface some how would solve this, but we're gonna use it in Tails Server's client application, to automate account creation, joining the right chat, etc. intrigeri tells me we could do D-Bus mediation with AppArmor once Linux 4.16 is available to us (unless it's delayed) which sounds ideal.
Related issues
Associated revisions
Deny access to Pidgin's D-Bus service (refs: #14612).
That D-Bus interface is dangerous because it allows any application
running as `amnesia' that has access to the session bus to extract
basically any information from Pidgin and to reconfigure it:
https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/DbusHowto
Test suite: workaround Pidgin's DBus interface being blocked.
We actually depend on it for some tests.
Refs: #14612
Test suite: Make sure Pidgin's DBus interface is blocked.
Refs: #14612
Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/bugfix/14612-deny-access-to-pidgin-dbus-service' into devel
Fix-committed: #14612
History
#1 Updated by anonym about 2 years ago
Apparently there is a 5 year old (but unpublished?) CVE for this: https://census-labs.com/news/2012/02/25/libpurple-otr-info-leak/
Upstream ticket: https://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/14830
I think it can be disabled with something like: DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS= pidgin. Otherwise we could always recompile with --disable-dbus...
#2 Updated by intrigeri about 2 years ago
I think it can be disabled with something like:
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS= pidgin.
This would likely break input methods and a11y.
#3 Updated by intrigeri about 2 years ago
I think we can forbid all access to that D-Bus interface via D-Bus "security policy" mechanism: see dbus-daemon(1) and e.g. /usr/share/dbus-1/session.conf.
#4 Updated by intrigeri about 2 years ago
- Assignee set to intrigeri
- Target version changed from Tails_3.3 to Tails_3.2
- Type of work changed from Research to Code
- Affected tool set to Instant Messaging
#5 Updated by intrigeri about 2 years ago
- Blocks Feature #13234: Core work 2017Q3: Foundations Team added
#6 Updated by intrigeri about 2 years ago
(Seems more urgent than #12460 => replace it on my plate for this release.)
#7 Updated by intrigeri about 2 years ago
- Subject changed from Pidgin exposes everything through its D-Bus interface to Pidgin exposes everything through its D-Bus service
Note to myself: dbus-send --session --print-reply --dest=im.pidgin.purple.PurpleService /im/pidgin/purple/PurpleObject im.pidgin.purple.PurpleInterface.PurpleAccountsGetAll returns exit code 0 iff. Pidgin is running and I am allowed to talk to its D-Bus service.
#8 Updated by intrigeri about 2 years ago
- Status changed from Confirmed to In Progress
- Assignee changed from intrigeri to anonym
- % Done changed from 0 to 50
- QA Check set to Ready for QA
- Feature Branch set to bugfix/14612-deny-access-to-pidgin-dbus-service
Thankfully that was trivial :) Once Tails Server has some kind of proper privileged backend / unprivileged frontend separation (#12297) I expect it'll be feasible to give its backend access to the D-Bus interface without broadening the attack surface more than needed.
#9 Updated by anonym about 2 years ago
- Assignee changed from anonym to intrigeri
Woah, apparently we're already using Pigin's DBus interface in the automated test suite, see 0bc56936a7134f6140df440d1de042d9df9ffada. Fixed with 565ed09904b7bbf59359f886cf4cdf5d7cac4203.
I understand if you'd rather have me split that out into a separate branch/ticket for later. What do you think?
#11 Updated by anonym about 2 years ago
- Status changed from In Progress to Fix committed
- Assignee deleted (
anonym) - % Done changed from 50 to 100
- QA Check changed from Ready for QA to Pass
#12 Updated by anonym about 2 years ago
- Status changed from Fix committed to Resolved