Headline
GHSA-f3wc-3vxv-xmvr: Synapse Outgoing federation to specific hosts can be disabled by sending malicious invites
Impact
A malicious user on a Synapse homeserver X with permission to create certain state events can disable outbound federation from X to an arbitrary homeserver Y.
Synapse instances with federation disabled are not affected.
Details
The Matrix protocol allows homeservers to provide an invite_room_state field on a room invite containing a summary of room state. In versions of Synapse up to and including v1.73.0, Synapse did not limit the size of invite_room_state, meaning that it was possible to create an arbitrarily large invite event.
An attacker with an account on a vulnerable Synapse homeserver X could exploit this by having X create an over-sized invite event in a room with a user from another homeserver Y. Once acknowledged by the invitee’s homeserver, the invite event would be sent in a batch of events to Y. If the malicious invite is so large that the entire batch is rejected as too large, X’s outgoing traffic to Y would become "stuck", meaning that messages and state events created by X would remain unseen by Y.
Patches
Synapse 1.74 refuses to create oversized invite_room_state fields. Server operators should upgrade to Synapse 1.74 or newer urgently.
Workarounds
There are no robust workarounds.
This attack needs an account on Synapse homeserver X to deny federation from X to another homeserver Y. As a partial mitigation, Synapse operators can disable open registration to limit the ability of attackers to create new accounts on homeserver X.
If homeserver X has been attacked in this way, restarting it will resume outgoing federation by entering "catchup mode". For catchup mode to ignore the oversized invites, every attacked room must have a correctly-sized event sent by X which is newer than any oversized invite. This is difficult to arrange, and does not prevent the attacker from repeating their attack.
References
- https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/14492 was caused by this issue.
- https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/14642 includes the patch described above.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, e-mail us at [email protected].
Impact
A malicious user on a Synapse homeserver X with permission to create certain state events can disable outbound federation from X to an arbitrary homeserver Y.
Synapse instances with federation disabled are not affected.
Details
The Matrix protocol allows homeservers to provide an invite_room_state field on a room invite containing a summary of room state. In versions of Synapse up to and including v1.73.0, Synapse did not limit the size of invite_room_state, meaning that it was possible to create an arbitrarily large invite event.
An attacker with an account on a vulnerable Synapse homeserver X could exploit this by having X create an over-sized invite event in a room with a user from another homeserver Y. Once acknowledged by the invitee’s homeserver, the invite event would be sent in a batch of events to Y. If the malicious invite is so large that the entire batch is rejected as too large, X’s outgoing traffic to Y would become "stuck", meaning that messages and state events created by X would remain unseen by Y.
Patches
Synapse 1.74 refuses to create oversized invite_room_state fields. Server operators should upgrade to Synapse 1.74 or newer urgently.
Workarounds
There are no robust workarounds.
This attack needs an account on Synapse homeserver X to deny federation from X to another homeserver Y. As a partial mitigation, Synapse operators can disable open registration to limit the ability of attackers to create new accounts on homeserver X.
If homeserver X has been attacked in this way, restarting it will resume outgoing federation by entering "catchup mode". For catchup mode to ignore the oversized invites, every attacked room must have a correctly-sized event sent by X which is newer than any oversized invite. This is difficult to arrange, and does not prevent the attacker from repeating their attack.
References
- matrix-org/synapse#14492 was caused by this issue.
- matrix-org/synapse#14642 includes the patch described above.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, e-mail us at [email protected].
References
- GHSA-f3wc-3vxv-xmvr
- matrix-org/synapse#14492
- matrix-org/synapse#14642
Related news
Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation. A malicious user on a Synapse homeserver X with permission to create certain state events can disable outbound federation from X to an arbitrary homeserver Y. Synapse instances with federation disabled are not affected. In versions of Synapse up to and including 1.73, Synapse did not limit the size of `invite_room_state`, meaning that it was possible to create an arbitrarily large invite event. Synapse 1.74 refuses to create oversized `invite_room_state` fields. Server operators should upgrade to Synapse 1.74 or newer urgently.