CVE-2021-37703 (published 2021-08-13T16:15Z)

Discourse is an open-source platform for community discussion. In Discourse before versions 2.7.8 and 2.8.0.beta5, a user's read state for a topic such as the last read post number and the notification level is exposed.

Severity: MEDIUM
CVSS v2 base score: 4.3 (AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N)
CVSS v3 base score: 4.3, MEDIUM (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N)

Weakness information:
cwe_id: CWE-200
cwe_name: Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor
description: The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.
extended_description: 
	   There are many different kinds of mistakes that introduce information exposures. The severity of the error can range widely, depending on the context in which the product operates, the type of sensitive information that is revealed, and the benefits it may provide to an attacker.  Some kinds of sensitive information include:
       
         private, personal information, such as personal messages, financial data, health records, geographic location, or contact details
         system status and environment, such as the operating system and installed packages
		 business secrets and intellectual property
		 network status and configuration
		 the product's own code or internal state
         metadata, e.g. logging of connections or message headers
		 indirect information, such as a discrepancy between two internal operations that can be observed by an outsider
       
	    Information might be sensitive to different parties, each of which may have their own expectations for whether the information should be protected.  These parties include:
               
                  the product's own users
                  people or organizations whose information is created or used by the product, even if they are not direct product users
		  the product's administrators, including the admins of the system(s) and/or networks on which the product operates
                  the developer
               
	    Information exposures can occur in different ways:
               
                  the code explicitly inserts sensitive information into resources or messages that are intentionally made accessible to unauthorized actors, but should not contain the information - i.e., the information should have been "scrubbed" or "sanitized"
                  a different weakness or mistake indirectly inserts the sensitive information into resources, such as a web script error revealing the full system path of the program.
                  the code manages resources that intentionally contain sensitive information, but the resources are unintentionally made accessible to unauthorized actors. In this case, the information exposure is resultant - i.e., a different weakness enabled the access to the information in the first place.
               
	    It is common practice to describe any loss of confidentiality as an "information exposure," but this can lead to overuse of CWE-200 in CWE mapping. From the CWE perspective, loss of confidentiality is a technical impact that can arise from dozens of different weaknesses, such as insecure file permissions or out-of-bounds read.  CWE-200 and its lower-level descendants are intended to cover the mistakes that occur in behaviors that explicitly manage, store, transfer, or cleanse sensitive information.
         
         

Fix information:
repo_url: https://github.com/discourse/discourse
commit_details: repo_url: https://github.com/discourse/discourse
author: Alan Guo Xiang Tan
author_date: 2021-08-11 11:01:13+08:00
msg: SECURITY: User's read state for topic is leaked to unauthorized clients.

A user's read state for a topic such as the last read post number and the notification level is exposed.
repository: repo_url: https://github.com/discourse/discourse
repo_name: discourse/discourse
description: A platform for community discussion. Free, open, simple.
repo_language: Ruby
owner: discourse
file_changes: filename: topic_tracking_state.rb
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -145,6 +145,15 @@ class TopicTrackingState
     return unless post.topic.regular?
     # TODO at high scale we are going to have to defer this,
     #   perhaps cut down to users that are around in the last 7 days as well
+    tags = nil
+    tag_ids = nil
+    if include_tags_in_report?
+      tag_ids, tags = post.topic.tags.pluck(:id, :name).transpose
+    end
+
+    scope = TopicUser
+      .tracking(post.topic_id)
+      .includes(user: :user_stat)
 
     group_ids =
       if post.post_type == Post.types[:whisper]
@@ -153,15 +162,13 @@ class TopicTrackingState
         post.topic.category && post.topic.category.secure_group_ids
       end
 
-    tags = nil
-    tag_ids = nil
-    if include_tags_in_report?
-      tag_ids, tags = post.topic.tags.pluck(:id, :name).transpose
+    if group_ids.present?
+      scope = scope
+        .joins("INNER JOIN group_users gu ON gu.user_id = topic_users.user_id")
+        .where("gu.group_id IN (?)", group_ids)
     end
 
-    TopicUser
-      .tracking(post.topic_id)
-      .includes(user: :user_stat)
+    scope
       .select([:user_id, :last_read_post_number, :notification_level])
       .each do |tu|
 
@@ -188,7 +195,9 @@ class TopicTrackingState
         payload: payload
       }
 
-      MessageBus.publish(self.unread_channel_key(tu.user_id), message.as_json, group_ids: group_ids)
+      MessageBus.publish(self.unread_channel_key(tu.user_id), message.as_json,
+        user_ids: [tu.user_id]
+      )
     end
 
   end

programming_language: Ruby
filename: post_creator_spec.rb
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -137,7 +137,8 @@ describe PostCreator do
         Jobs.run_immediately!
         UserActionManager.enable
 
-        admin = Fabricate(:admin)
+        admin = Fabricate(:user)
+        admin.grant_admin!
 
         cat = Fabricate(:category)
         cat.set_permissions(admins: :full)

programming_language: Ruby
filename: topic_tracking_state_spec.rb
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -48,11 +48,54 @@ describe TopicTrackingState do
 
       data = message.data
 
+      expect(message.user_ids).to contain_exactly(post.user.id)
+      expect(message.group_ids).to eq(nil)
       expect(data["topic_id"]).to eq(topic.id)
       expect(data["message_type"]).to eq(described_class::UNREAD_MESSAGE_TYPE)
       expect(data["payload"]["archetype"]).to eq(Archetype.default)
     end
 
+    it "does not publish whisper post to non-staff users" do
+      post.update!(post_type: Post.types[:whisper])
+
+      messages = MessageBus.track_publish(described_class.unread_channel_key(post.user_id)) do
+        TopicTrackingState.publish_unread(post)
+      end
+
+      expect(messages).to eq([])
+
+      post.user.grant_admin!
+
+      message = MessageBus.track_publish(described_class.unread_channel_key(post.user_id)) do
+        TopicTrackingState.publish_unread(post)
+      end.first
+
+      expect(message.user_ids).to contain_exactly(post.user_id)
+      expect(message.group_ids).to eq(nil)
+    end
+
+    it "correctly publishes unread for a post in a restricted category" do
+      group = Fabricate(:group)
+      category = Fabricate(:private_category, group: group)
+
+      post.topic.update!(category: category)
+
+      messages = MessageBus.track_publish(described_class.unread_channel_key(post.user_id)) do
+        TopicTrackingState.publish_unread(post)
+      end
+
+      expect(messages).to eq([])
+
+      group.add(post.user)
+
+      message = MessageBus.track_publish(described_class.unread_channel_key(post.user_id)) do
+        TopicTrackingState.publish_unread(post)
+      end.first
+
+      expect(message.user_ids).to contain_exactly(post.user_id)
+      expect(message.group_ids).to eq(nil)
+    end
+
     describe 'for a private message' do
       before do
         TopicUser.change(

programming_language: Ruby