[Freeipa-users] FreeIPA Security issue : Anonymous user can fetch user details from IPA without authenticating

[Sigbjorn Lie]

On 03/01/14 20:33, Stephen Ingram wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 10:29 AM, Dmitri Pal <dpal at redhat.com 
> <mailto:dpal at redhat.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 01/03/2014 12:50 PM, Will Sheldon wrote:
>>     Thanks Petr, that certainly makes sense from the point of view of
>>     functionality.
>>
>>     I do think the default is sane, but there are a lot of possible
>>     deployment scenarios and my concern is that a junior or time poor
>>     admin looking to implement a trusted, secure solution should be
>>     made aware of any potential data leakage during configuration,
>>     (preferably in big red letters in the documentation, or better
>>     still, the install script).
>>
>>     Though I am reluctant to draw comparisons between IPA and MS AD
>>     they do seem inevitable. AD restricts anonymous binds to the
>>     rootDSE entry by default and as such this may be considered by
>>     many to be the expected default. Extra care should therefore be
>>     made to point out this difference. To do otherwise risks
>>     undermining the confidence of users in the security of the solution.
>
>     It is a double edge sword. We compared IPA to LDAP based solutions
>     and with those you have (had) anonymous bind enabled by default.
>     IMO it is the question of a migration. The field of centralized
>     authentication is crowded with all sorts of different solutions,
>     though not that integrated as AD or IdM.
>     It seems that migrating and then tightening security to the level
>     you need is the way to go. The default you suggest might be a
>     barrier to migration as people usually tackle problems one step at
>     a time.
>     I am not against changing the default eventually but I am not sure
>     it is the time to.
>
>     But may be I am wrong. Are there any opinions on the matter?
>
>
> I think traditionally LDAP-based solutions have been used as true 
> directories where one might be able to search for people through say a 
> Web-based interface, for example at a university. Whereas AD can also 
> be deployed as a directory, but more often than not though say an 
> email Interface (e.g. Outlook) where the user has already gained 
> access via their own credentials so there was not a need to allow 
> anonymous binds. I like following the tradition of LDAP-based 
> directories where anonymous access is allowed by default, however, it 
> would be really nice as the OP requested to have controls available 
> via the WebUI where the admin could apply ACLs to the directory to 
> restrict access to various areas. As changing the overall access 
> scheme requires a directory restart, I'm not too sure how easy it 
> would be to incorporate that into the WebUI, but maybe a notice 
> somewhere to re-enforce the "open" nature of the directory if the 
> default is retained.
>
>

Not to start a flame war here - but I would like to say I disagree with 
you. :)

The traditional LDAP-based solutions you're mentioning keep information 
that would be open to the public, such as a phone directory.

However IPA (like AD) keep sensitive information that should not be open 
to the public. From a security standpoint it's much easier to forget to 
secure a piece of information in an open directory, than to simply close 
the directory off and only open for known entities. In my point of view, 
it's better to keep these directories closed by default, to anything but 
authenticated requests.

It's a great thing that IPA can easily be configured to either be open 
or closed to anonymous requests by default. :)


Regards,
Siggi



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/freeipa-users/attachments/20140106/1dfa50ac/attachment.htm>