CVE-2021-21273: Open redirects on some federation and push requests
Impact Requests to user provided domains were not restricted to external IP addresses when calculating the key validity for third-party invite events and sending push notifications. This could cause Synapse to make requests to internal infrastructure. The type of request was not controlled by the user, although limited modification of request bodies was possible.
For the most thorough protection server administrators should remove the deprecated federationiprangeblacklist from their settings after upgrading to Synapse v1.25.0 which will result in Synapse using the improved default IP address restrictions. See the new iprangeblacklist and iprangewhitelist settings if more specific control is necessary.
Patches Issue is resolved by #8821. Further improvements to protect homeservers by default were made in #8870 and #8954.
Workarounds Requests to internal IP addresses could be blocked at the system or network level.
Other sources
Synapse is a Matrix reference homeserver written in python (pypi package matrix-synapse). Matrix is an ecosystem for open federated Instant Messaging and VoIP. In Synapse before version 1.25.0, requests to user provided domains were not restricted to external IP addresses when calculating the key validity for third-party invite events and sending push notifications. This could cause Synapse to make requests to internal infrastructure. The type of request was not controlled by the user, although limited modification of request bodies was possible. For the most thorough protection server administrators should remove the deprecated federationiprangeblacklist from their settings after upgrading to Synapse v1.25.0 which will result in Synapse using the improved default IP address restrictions. See the new iprangeblacklist and iprangewhitelist settings if more specific control is necessary.
Affected Software
Remediation
Patch Available
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2021-21273?
CVE-2021-21273 is a vulnerability in Synapse, a Matrix reference homeserver, that allows requests to user-provided domains without restricting them to external IP addresses.
What is Synapse?
Synapse is a Matrix reference homeserver written in Python.
What is Matrix?
Matrix is an ecosystem for open federated Instant Messaging and VoIP.
How severe is CVE-2021-21273?
CVE-2021-21273 has a severity rating of 6.1 (medium).
How do I fix CVE-2021-21273?
To fix CVE-2021-21273, upgrade to version 1.25.0 of Matrix Synapse.