Case Study for Improper Authentication in GitLab (CVE-2022-22213)

[MaheshPavan666]

We describe a vulnerability in GitLab's OAuth login flow (CVE-2021-22213) that caused GitLab to expose OAuth access tokens in the URL fragment when redirecting its users. Due to security policy violations in Safari, the token was also exposed in the URLs of sites controlled by attackers, making it easy for attackers to steal the token and impersonate users. GitLab resolved the bug by not putting the token in the URL visible in the browser and not sending the token except in server-side requests. GitLab uses the incident as a case study to teach CWE-287 (Improper Authentication) and stresses not putting OAuth tokens in URLs visible in the browser, using secure OAuth flows (e.g., Authorization Code with PKCE), testing browser behavior, using Content Security Policies, and automated leak detection.

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Analyzing Presence of Markdown

Markdown detected in the document.

Parser Issues

The following issues were encountered by the parser used to analyze this file. This might explain potential errors and false positives in the subsequent analysis.

• [Info] Inferring that line 1 contains the title

Section Analysis

• [Med] Unexpected/non-standard section name: 'Generic example' (this may break analysis)
• [Info] 0 major section-name issues detected.
• [Med] Section 'Introduction' is expected to have 3 hash marks, but it has 2
• [Med] Section 'Software' is expected to have 3 hash marks, but it has 2
• [Med] Section 'Weakness' is expected to have 3 hash marks, but it has 2
• [Med] Section 'Vulnerability' is expected to have 3 hash marks, but it has 2
• [Med] Section 'Exploit' is expected to have 3 hash marks, but it has 2
• [Med] Section 'Fix' is expected to have 3 hash marks, but it has 2
• [Med] Section 'Prevention' is expected to have 3 hash marks, but it has 2
• [Med] Section 'Conclusion' is expected to have 3 hash marks, but it has 2
• [Med] Section 'References' is expected to have 3 hash marks, but it has 2
• [Med] Section 'Contributions' is expected to have 3 hash marks, but it has 2

Analyzing Title Section

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you provided the title. This an issue with the analyzer.

Inferred/Extracted Title begins with text: 'Improper Authentication In GitLab'

• [Low] Title does not contain only capital letters

Analyzing Introduction Section

No issues found.

Analyzing Software Section

No issues found.

Analyzing Weakness Section

No issues found.

Analyzing Vulnerability Section

No issues found.

Analyzing Fix Section

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Analyzing References Section

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