Commit Graph
2 Commits
Author SHA1 Message Date
Bernd RodlerandClaude Opus 4.8 a4155aa342 security(smime): fix finding 5 (parser DoS) and harden finding 4
Finding 5 — the MIME parser runs on attacker-controlled input: the inner
content recovered after decrypt/verify is whatever the sender put there.
Upstream had no depth limit on nested multiparts and no size cap anywhere.

Verified against the unpatched upstream parser with the same input:

  UPSTREAM CRASHED: RangeError - Maximum call stack size exceeded
  UPSTREAM: 65MB accepted (no size cap)

So this was a live decrypt-time DoS reachable by anyone who can send mail.

Caps added: depth 20, parts 500, bytes 64 MB — generous enough that no
legitimate message comes close (real mail nests 3-4 levels). Past a limit a
subtree degrades to a leaf rather than throwing, so one pathological branch
doesn't discard the legitimate parts above it. Oversize input is refused
outright rather than truncated: half a MIME tree parses into misleading
nonsense, and showing part of a message is worse than saying no. Both
bodyStructure walkers in smime-detect.js are capped too — those run on
server-supplied structure BEFORE any decrypt/verify gate.

Finding 4 — hardened, not eliminated, per the agreed scope. Unlocked
CryptoKeys still live in durable IndexedDB rather than memory; moving them
would mean refactoring how the plugin shares state across iframes and
risking the unlock->decrypt path just verified.

What changed instead:

- Removed the lockOnLogout opt-out from the logout/account-switch wipes. A
  non-extractable key cannot be exported but can still be USED, so a handle
  outliving the session lets anyone with the browser profile decrypt mail
  without knowing the passphrase. That is not a preference to toggle off.
- Added a best-effort wipe on pagehide and beforeunload to narrow the window
  in which a usable handle exists on disk. Best-effort by nature: an
  IndexedDB write may not complete during teardown and neither event fires
  on a crash — which is precisely why the boot wipe in activate() remains
  the load-bearing control.
- Deliberately NOT wiping on visibilitychange: tabbing away would drop the
  unlock and force a passphrase re-entry every time, which trains users into
  turning S/MIME off entirely.
- Dropped the now-dead lockOnLogout setting from the manifest. A toggle that
  silently does nothing is worse than no toggle.

Tests: 49 unit assertions + 28 round trip. The round trip now feeds genuinely
hostile MIME through the real parser (5000-level nesting, 5000 siblings,
65 MB) and still confirms a normal multipart/alternative parses correctly.
Full crypto round trip unchanged and passing, so neither fix broke S/MIME.

Findings 6, 7, 8 and 9 remain open.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-04 11:57:18 +02:00
Bernd RodlerandClaude Opus 4.8 f7e487171c security(smime): fork upstream plugin and fix two audit findings
S-01 audited bulwarkmail/plugins/smime @ 91085a3 (2,935 lines). Nine
findings, two HIGH. No backdoor and no exfiltration path anywhere in the
bundle — the problems are trust-model and input-validation gaps. Full
report in vnc/audits/SMIME-PLUGIN-AUDIT-2026-08-04.md.

Fork is source-only. The upstream smime.zip is a 1.77 MB prebuilt bundle
whose manifest reads 1.0.1 while the source reads 1.0.2, so auditing
src/ would not audit what that zip installs. We build from source.

Finding 1 (HIGH) — certificate substitution. maybeAutoImportSigner gated
on signatureValid alone, but smimeVerify runs checkChain:false, so that
only proves "signed by whoever holds this key", not that the claimed
identity is real. Self-sign a cert asserting victim@example.com, send one
signed message, and it was stored as the encryption target for that
address — the user's next Encrypt to the victim went to the attacker.
Now requires signerEmailMatch === true and !selfSigned. Both values were
already computed and displayed as untrusted in the banner; only the
import path ignored them. Tests for `true` explicitly so an undefined
match (missing From header) fails closed.

Finding 3 (MED-HIGH) — CRLF header injection. Escaping reached only
Subject and attachment filename; display names, raw addresses,
Message-ID, In-Reply-To, References and attachment Content-Type were
emitted verbatim, and formatAddress escapes only backslash and quote.
In-Reply-To/References/display names are copied from inbound mail when
replying or forwarding, so the value is attacker-supplied. Sanitising
inside formatHeader covers all 17 call sites by construction; the three
headers assembled directly get stripCrlf explicitly.

Also adds auth:observe to the manifest. The plugin registers
onAfterLogout/onAccountSwitch — real hooks (lib/plugin-hooks.ts:362-363)
— without declaring the permission, so under B-09 the session-key wipe
would silently stop running.

verify-fixes.mjs carries 19 assertions including source checks that fail
if either guard is removed or a new unsanitised interpolated header
appears. That last one immediately caught the interpolated smime-type
Content-Type header, which manual review had dismissed as static.

Finding 2 (unauthenticated CBC accepted on decrypt) is NOT fixed. This
is not safe for real mail yet — sandbox accounts only.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-04 10:00:11 +02:00