Issues » Incorrect access control can lead to information disclosure and remote execution

Issue: SI-54
Date: Jan 9, 2020, 10:30:00 AM
Severity: Critical
Requires Admin Access: No
Fix Version: 5.2.4
Credit: Internal Security Team
Description:

dotCMS fails to normalize the URI string when checking if a user should have access to a specific directory.  If a dotCMS installation stores its assets under the tomcat's webapps/ROOT/assets directory, then the files and data stored under this directory can be accessed by crafting a uri that traverses the directory structure, like so:

http://localhost:8080/234aa/test/../../assets/messages/cms_language_en.properties

Additionally, when files are uploaded into dotCMS, it creates a temporary file which lives under the ./assets directory and whose location is knowable.  This allows a malicious user to upload an executable file such as a jsp and use it perform remote command execution with the permissions of the user running the dotCMS application.

Mitigation:

If you are unable to upgrade to dotCMS 5.2.4 or higher, there are workarounds that can be applied:

  1. The dotCMS /assets and /dotsecure should be stored in a folders outside of the webapps/ROOT directory.  You can configure your dotCMS to load these from external locations in the dotmarketing-config.properties file by setting these variables:

    ASSET_REAL_PATH=/data/shared/assets

    DYNAMIC_CONTENT_PATH=/data/local

  2. OSGI plugin fix: dotCMS has created an OSGI plugin that normalizes any URI passed to dotCMS which mitigates the issue.  This plugin can be found here: https://github.com/dotCMS/com.dotcms.filter.urinormalizer. This plugin can be dynamically loaded into a 5 series dotCMS instance and will mitigate the issue.

  3. Add constraint to web.xml: Additionally, if you are unable to move your /assets directory, you can add constraints to your web.xml to prevent unauthorized access to your ./assets and ./dotsecure directories, as detailed in this issue:

https://github.com/dotCMS/core/issues/17835

References

CVE: https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2020-6754

GitHub: https://github.com/dotCMS/core/issues/17796

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