CVE-2023-20902: Timing attack risk in Harbor

In the Harbor jobservice container, the comparison of secrets in the authenticator type is prone to timing attacks. The vulnerability occurs due to the following code:

if expectedSecret != secret {

To avoid this issue, constant time comparison should be used.

subtle.ConstantTimeCompare([]byte(expectedSecret), []byte(secret)) == 0

Impact

This attack might be possible theoretically, but no workable proof of concept is available, and access complexity is set at High.
The jobservice exposes these APIs

Create a job task --- POST /api/v1/jobs    
Get job task information --- GET /api/v1/jobs/{job_id}
Stop job task ---  POST /api/v1/jobs/{job_id}
Get job log task ---  GET /api/v1/jobs/{job_id}/log
Get job execution --- GET /api/v1/jobs/{job_id}/executions
Get job stats ---  GET /api/v1/stats
Get job service configuration ---  GET /api/v1/config

It is used to create jobs/stop job tasks and retrieve job task information. If an attacker obtains the secrets, it is possible to retrieve the job information, create a job, or stop a job task.

The following versions of Harbor are involved:
<=Harbor 2.8.2, <=Harbor 2.7.2, <= Harbor 2.6.x, <=Harbor 1.10.17

Patches

Harbor 2.8.3, Harbor 2.7.3, Harbor 1.10.18

Workarounds

Because the jobservice only exposes HTTP service to harbor-core containers, blocking any inbound traffic from the external network to the jobservice container can reduce the risk.

Credits

Thanks to Porcupiney Hairs for reporting this issue.