Update dependency apollo-server to v2.25.3 [SECURITY] #4505

renovate · 2020-09-23T23:40:54Z

This PR contains the following updates:

Package	Change	Age	Adoption	Passing	Confidence
apollo-server	`2.12.0` -> `2.25.3`

GitHub Vulnerability Alerts

GHSA-w42g-7vfc-xf37

We encourage all users of Apollo Server to read this advisory in its entirety to understand the impact. The Resolution section contains details on patched versions.

Impact

If subscriptions: false is passed to the ApolloServer constructor options, there is no impact. If implementors were not expecting validation rules to be enforced on the WebSocket subscriptions transport and are unconcerned about introspection being enabled on the WebSocket subscriptions transport (or were not expecting that), then this advisory is not applicable. If introspection: true is passed to the ApolloServer constructor options, the impact is limited to user-provided validation rules (i.e., using validationRules) since there would be no expectation that introspection was disabled.

The enforcement of user-provided validation rules on the HTTP transport is working as intended and is unaffected by this advisory. Similarly, disabling introspection on the HTTP transport is working as intended and is unaffected by this advisory.

Note: Unless subscriptions: false is explicitly passed to the constructor parameters of new ApolloServer({ ... }), subscriptions are enabled by default, whether or not there is a Subscription type present in the schema. As an alternative to upgrading to a patched version, see the Workarounds section below to disable subscriptions if it is not necessary.

In cases where subscriptions: false is not explicitly set, the subscription server is impacted since validation rules which are enforced on the main request pipeline within Apollo Server were not being passed to the SubscriptionServer.create invocation (seen here, prior to the patch).

The omitted validation rules for the subscription server include any validationRules passed by implementors to the ApolloServer constructor which were expected to be enforced on the subscriptions WebSocket endpoint. Additionally, because an internal NoIntrospection validation rule is used to disable introspection, it would have been possible to introspect a server on the WebSocket endpoint that the SubscriptionServer creates even though it was not possible on other transports (e.g. HTTP).

The severity of risk depends on whether sensitive information is being stored in the schema itself. The contents of schema descriptions, or secrets which might be revealed by the names of types or field names within those types, will determine the risk to individual implementors.

Affected packages

The bug existed in apollo-server-core versions prior to version 2.14.2, however, this means all integration packages (e.g., apollo-server-express, etc.) prior to version 2.14.2 which depend on apollo-server-core for their subscriptions support are affected. This includes the apollo-server package that automatically provides an Express server.

Therefore, for officially published Apollo Server packages, the full list of affected packages includes: apollo-server, apollo-server-azure-functions, apollo-server-cache-memcached, apollo-server-core, apollo-server-cloud-functions, apollo-server-cloudflare, apollo-server-express, apollo-server-fastify, apollo-server-hapi, apollo-server-koa, apollo-server-lambda, and apollo-server-micro.

Note: The full list included here doesn't fit into the box provided by the GitHub Security Advisories form.

Resolution

The problem is resolved in Apollo Server versions 2.14.2 or higher. If upgrading is not an option, see Workarounds below. When upgrading, ensure that the affected integration package (e.g., apollo-server-express) and the apollo-server-core package are both updated to the patched versions. (The version numbers should both be 2.14.2.)

Workarounds

Upgrading to a patched version is the recommended solution. If upgrading is not an option, subscriptions can be disabled with subscriptions: false to resolve the impact. Disabling subscriptions in this way will disable all subscriptions support and the WebSocket transport:

const server = new ApolloServer({
  subscriptions: false,
  /* Other options, such as typeDefs, resolvers, schema, etc. */
});

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please open an issue and the maintainers will try to assist.

Credit and appreciation

Apollo fully believes in ethical disclosure of vulnerabilities by security researchers who notify us with details and provide us time to address and fix the issues before publicly disclosing.

Credit for this discovery goes to the team at Bitwala, who reported the concern to us responsibly after discovering it during their own auditing.

GHSA-qm7x-rc44-rrqw

Impact

In certain configurations, Apollo Server serves the client-side web app "GraphQL Playground" from the same web server that executes GraphQL operations. This web app has access to cookies and other credentials associated with the web server's operations. There is a cross-site scripting vulnerability in GraphQL Playground that allows for arbitrary JavaScript code execution in your web server's origin. If a user clicks a specially crafted link to your GraphQL Playground page served by Apollo Server, an attacker can steal cookies and other private browser data.

Details of the underlying GraphQL Playground vulnerability are available in this graphql-playground advisory. (A similar vulnerability exists in the related graphiql project.) This advisory focuses on identifying whether Apollo Server installations are vulnerable and mitigating the vulnerability in Apollo Server; see the other advisories for details on the XSS vulnerability itself.

The impact of this vulnerability is more severe if (as is common) your GraphQL server's origin URL is an origin that is used to store sensitive data such as cookies.

In order for this vulnerability to affect your Apollo Server installation, it must actually serve GraphQL Playground. The integration between Apollo Server and GraphQL Playground is different in Apollo Server 2 and Apollo Server 3. You can tell which version of Apollo Server you are running by looking at the version of the package from which you import the ApolloServer class: this may be apollo-server, apollo-server-express, apollo-server-lambda, etc.

Apollo Server 3

Apollo Server 3 does not serve GraphQL Playground by default. It has a landing page plugin system and the default plugin is a simple splash page that is not vulnerable to this exploit, linking to Apollo Sandbox Explorer. (We chose to change the default because GraphQL Playground is not actively maintained.)

If you are running Apollo Server 3, then you are only vulnerable if you explicitly import the ApolloServerPluginLandingPageGraphQLPlayground plugin and pass it to your ApolloServer's constructor in the plugins array. Otherwise, this advisory does not apply to your server.

Apollo Server 2

Apollo Server 2 serves GraphQL Playground by default, unless the NODE_ENV environment variable is set to production, or if you explicitly configure it via the playground option to the ApolloServer constructor.

Your Apollo Server 2 installation is vulnerable if any of the following is true:

You pass playground: true to the ApolloServer constructor
You pass some other object like playground: {title: "Title"} to the ApolloServer constructor
You do not pass any playground option to the ApolloServer constructor, and the NODE_ENV environment variable is not set to production

Apollo Server 1

Apollo Server 1 included graphiql instead of graphql-playground. graphiql isn't automatically enabled in Apollo Server 1: you have to explicitly call a function such as graphiqlExpress to enable it. Because Apollo Server 1 is not commonly used, we have not done a detailed examination of whether the integration between Apollo Server 1 and graphiql is vulnerable to a similar exploit. If you are still using Apollo Server 1, we recommend you disable graphiql by removing the graphiqlExpress call, and then upgrade to a newer version of Apollo Server.

Patches and workarounds

There are several approaches you can take to ensure that your server is not vulnerable to this issue.

Upgrade Apollo Server

The vulnerability has been patched in Apollo Server 2.25.3 and Apollo Server 3.4.1. To get the patch, upgrade your Apollo Server entry point package to one of the fixed versions; this package may be apollo-server, apollo-server-express, apollo-server-lambda, etc. Additionally, if you depend directly on apollo-server-core in your package.json, make sure that you upgrade it to the same version.

Upgrade Playground version only

If upgrading to the latest version of Apollo Server 2 or 3 quickly will be challenging, you can configure your current version of Apollo Server to serve the latest version of the GraphQL Playground app. This will pin your app to serve a specific version of GraphQL Playground and you will not receive updates to it when you upgrade Apollo Server later, but this may be acceptable because GraphQL Playground is not actively maintained.

The way to do this depends on what version of Apollo Server you're using and if you're already configuring GraphQL Playground.

Apollo Server 3: If you are using Apollo Server 3, then you are only vulnerable if your serve explicitly calls ApolloServerPluginLandingPageGraphQLPlayground and passes it to the Apollo Server constructor in the plugins array. Add the option version: '1.7.42' to this call, so it looks like:

plugins: [ApolloServerPluginLandingPageGraphQLPlayground({version: '1.7.42'})]

Apollo Server 2 with no explicit playground option: If you are using Apollo Server 2 and do not currently pass the playground option to new ApolloServer, add a playground option like so:

new ApolloServer({ playground: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' ? false : { version: '1.7.42' } })

Apollo Server 2 with playground: true or playground: {x, y, z}: If you are using Apollo Server 2 and currently pass true or an object to new ApolloServer, pass the version option under the playground option like so:

new ApolloServer({ playground: { version: '1.7.42', x, y, z } })

Disable GraphQL Playground

If upgrading Apollo Server or GraphQL Playground is challenging, you can also disable GraphQL Playground.

In Apollo Server 3, remove the call to ApolloServerPluginLandingPageGraphQLPlayground from your ApolloServer constructor's plugins array. This will replace GraphQL Playground with a simple splash page. See the landing page plugins docs for details.

In Apollo Server 2, add playground: false to your ApolloServer constructor: new ApolloServer({ playground: false }). This will replace GraphQL Playground with an attempt to execute a GraphQL operation, which will likely display an error in the browser.

If you disable GraphQL Playground, any users who rely on it to execute GraphQL operations will need an alternative, such as the Apollo Studio Explorer's account-free Sandbox.

Credit

This vulnerability was discovered by @Ry0taK. Thank you!

The fix to GraphQL Playground was developed by @acao and @glasser with help from @imolorhe, @divyenduz, and @benjie.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

Read the graphql-playground advisory
Open an issue in the apollo-server repo
If the issue involves confidential information, email us at [email protected]

Release Notes

apollographql/apollo-server

Update dependency apollo-server to v2.25.3 [SECURITY] #4505

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Update dependency apollo-server to v2.25.3 [SECURITY] #4505

Conversation

renovate bot commented Sep 23, 2020 • edited Loading

GitHub Vulnerability Alerts

Impact

Affected packages

Resolution

Workarounds

For more information

Credit and appreciation

Impact

Apollo Server 3

Apollo Server 2

Apollo Server 1

Patches and workarounds

Upgrade Apollo Server

Upgrade Playground version only

Disable GraphQL Playground

Credit

For more information

Release Notes

Configuration

renovate bot commented Sep 23, 2020 •

edited

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