CVE-2020-26230: Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor (CWE-200)
value: Radar COVID is the official COVID-19 exposure notification app for Spain. In affected versions of Radar COVID, identification and de-anonymization of COVID-19 positive users that upload Radar COVID TEKs to the Radar COVID server is possible. This vulnerability enables the identification and de-anonymization of COVID-19 positive users when using Radar COVID. The vulnerability is caused by the fact that Radar COVID connections to the server (uploading of TEKs to the backend) are only made by COVID-19 positives. Therefore, any on-path observer with the ability to monitor traffic between the app and the server can identify which users had a positive test. Such an adversary can be the mobile network operator (MNO) if the connection is done through a mobile network, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) if the connection is done through the Internet (e.g., a home network), a VPN provider used by the user, the local network operator in the case of enterprise networks, or any eavesdropper with access to the same network (WiFi or Ethernet) as the user as could be the case of public WiFi hotspots deployed at shopping centers, airports, hotels, and coffee shops. The attacker may also de-anonymize the user. For this additional stage to succeed, the adversary needs to correlate Radar COVID traffic to other identifiable information from the victim. This could be achieved by associating the connection to a contract with the name of the victim or by associating Radar COVID traffic to other user-generated flows containing identifiers in the clear (e.g., HTTP cookies or other mobile flows sending unique identifiers like the IMEI or the AAID without encryption). The former can be executed, for instance, by the Internet Service Provider or the MNO. The latter can be executed by any on-path adversary, such as the network provider or even the cloud provider that hosts more than one service accessed by the victim. The farther the adversary is either from the victim (the client) or the end-point (the server), the less likely it may be that the adversary has access to re-identification information. The vulnerability has been mitigated with the injection of dummy traffic from the application to the backend. Dummy traffic is generated by all users independently of whether they are COVID-19 positive or not. The issue was fixed in iOS in version 1.0.8 (uniform distribution), 1.1.0 (exponential distribution), Android in version 1.0.7 (uniform distribution), 1.1.0 (exponential distribution), Backend in version 1.1.2-RELEASE. For more information see the referenced GitHub Security Advisory.
CWE description: The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.
CVSS v3 base score: 5.3
Published: 2020-11-13T19:15Z
Repository: https://github.com/RadarCOVID/radar-covid-android
Language: Kotlin
Files changed: app/src/main/java/es/gob/radarcovid/features/worker/FakeInfectionReportWorker.kt
Commit date: 2020-10-15 18:38:43 +0200
Commit message: chore: Changed ExistingWorkPolicy to REPLACE in fake request worker

Diff: diff --git a/app/src/main/java/es/gob/radarcovid/features/worker/FakeInfectionReportWorker.kt b/app/src/main/java/es/gob/radarcovid/features/worker/FakeInfectionReportWorker.kt
index fe4d0e8..43e5897 100644
--- a/app/src/main/java/es/gob/radarcovid/features/worker/FakeInfectionReportWorker.kt
+++ b/app/src/main/java/es/gob/radarcovid/features/worker/FakeInfectionReportWorker.kt
@@ -96,11 +96,11 @@ class FakeInfectionReportWorker(context: Context, workerParams: WorkerParameters
             }
             tDummy += clock.syncInterval();
             preferencesRepository.setTDummy(tDummy)
         }
 
-        start(applicationContext, tDummy, ExistingWorkPolicy.APPEND)
+        start(applicationContext, tDummy, ExistingWorkPolicy.REPLACE)
         return Result.success()
     }
 
     interface Clock {
         fun syncInterval(): Long

Vulnerable code:         start(applicationContext, tDummy, ExistingWorkPolicy.APPEND)
Fixed code:         start(applicationContext, tDummy, ExistingWorkPolicy.REPLACE)