Matrix Synapse

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver Prior to versions 1.95.1 and 1.96.0rc1, cached device information of remote users can be queried

CVE-2023-43796 5.3 - Medium - October 31, 2023

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver Prior to versions 1.95.1 and 1.96.0rc1, cached device information of remote users can be queried from Synapse. This can be used to enumerate the remote users known to a homeserver. System administrators are encouraged to upgrade to Synapse 1.95.1 or 1.96.0rc1 to receive a patch. As a workaround, the `federation_domain_whitelist` can be used to limit federation traffic with a homeserver.

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation

CVE-2023-45129 4.9 - Medium - October 10, 2023

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation. Prior to version 1.94.0, a malicious server ACL event can impact performance temporarily or permanently leading to a persistent denial of service. Homeservers running on a closed federation (which presumably do not need to use server ACLs) are not affected. Server administrators are advised to upgrade to Synapse 1.94.0 or later. As a workaround, rooms with malicious server ACL events can be purged and blocked using the admin API.

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation

CVE-2023-41335 3.7 - Low - September 27, 2023

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation. When users update their passwords, the new credentials may be briefly held in the server database. While this doesn't grant the server any added capabilitiesit already learns the users' passwords as part of the authentication processit does disrupt the expectation that passwords won't be stored in the database. As a result, these passwords could inadvertently be captured in database backups for a longer duration. These temporarily stored passwords are automatically erased after a 48-hour window. This issue has been addressed in version 1.93.0. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this issue.

Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation

CVE-2023-42453 4.3 - Medium - September 27, 2023

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation. Users were able to forge read receipts for any event (if they knew the room ID and event ID). Note that the users were not able to view the events, but simply mark it as read. This could be confusing as clients will show the event as read by the user, even if they are not in the room. This issue has been patched in version 1.93.0. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this issue.

AuthZ

Synapse is a Matrix protocol homeserver written in Python with the Twisted framework

CVE-2023-32683 5.4 - Medium - June 06, 2023

Synapse is a Matrix protocol homeserver written in Python with the Twisted framework. A discovered oEmbed or image URL can bypass the `url_preview_url_blacklist` setting potentially allowing server side request forgery or bypassing network policies. Impact is limited to IP addresses allowed by the `url_preview_ip_range_blacklist` setting (by default this only allows public IPs) and by the limited information returned to the client: 1. For discovered oEmbed URLs, any non-JSON response or a JSON response which includes non-oEmbed information is discarded. 2. For discovered image URLs, any non-image response is discarded. Systems which have URL preview disabled (via the `url_preview_enabled` setting) or have not configured a `url_preview_url_blacklist` are not affected. This issue has been addressed in version 1.85.0. Users are advised to upgrade. User unable to upgrade may also disable URL previews.

AuthZ

Synapse is a Matrix protocol homeserver written in Python with the Twisted framework

CVE-2023-32682 5.4 - Medium - June 06, 2023

Synapse is a Matrix protocol homeserver written in Python with the Twisted framework. In affected versions it may be possible for a deactivated user to login when using uncommon configurations. This only applies if any of the following are true: 1. JSON Web Tokens are enabled for login via the `jwt_config.enabled` configuration setting. 2. The local password database is enabled via the `password_config.enabled` and `password_config.localdb_enabled` configuration settings *and* a user's password is updated via an admin API after a user is deactivated. Note that the local password database is enabled by default, but it is uncommon to set a user's password after they've been deactivated. Installations that are configured to only allow login via Single Sign-On (SSO) via CAS, SAML or OpenID Connect (OIDC); or via an external password provider (e.g. LDAP) are not affected. If not using JSON Web Tokens, ensure that deactivated users do not have a password set. This issue has been addressed in version 1.85.0. Users are advised to upgrade.

authentification

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation

CVE-2022-39374 6.5 - Medium - May 26, 2023

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation. If Synapse and a malicious homeserver are both joined to the same room, the malicious homeserver can trick Synapse into accepting previously rejected events into its view of the current state of that room. This can be exploited in a way that causes all further messages and state changes sent in that room from the vulnerable homeserver to be rejected. This issue has been patched in version 1.68.0

Resource Exhaustion

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation

CVE-2023-32323 4.3 - Medium - May 26, 2023

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation. A malicious user on a Synapse homeserver X with permission to create certain state events can disable outbound federation from X to an arbitrary homeserver Y. Synapse instances with federation disabled are not affected. In versions of Synapse up to and including 1.73, Synapse did not limit the size of `invite_room_state`, meaning that it was possible to create an arbitrarily large invite event. Synapse 1.74 refuses to create oversized `invite_room_state` fields. Server operators should upgrade to Synapse 1.74 or newer urgently.

Improper Input Validation

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation

CVE-2022-39335 5 - Medium - May 26, 2023

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation. The Matrix Federation API allows remote homeservers to request the authorization events in a room. This is necessary so that a homeserver receiving some events can validate that those events are legitimate and permitted in their room. However, in versions of Synapse up to and including 1.68.0, a Synapse homeserver answering a query for authorization events does not sufficiently check that the requesting server should be able to access them. The issue was patched in Synapse 1.69.0. Homeserver administrators are advised to upgrade.

Information Disclosure

Synapse before 1.52.0 with URL preview functionality enabled will attempt to generate URL previews for media stream URLs without properly limiting connection time

CVE-2022-41952 5.3 - Medium - November 22, 2022

Synapse before 1.52.0 with URL preview functionality enabled will attempt to generate URL previews for media stream URLs without properly limiting connection time. Connections will only be terminated after `max_spider_size` (default: 10M) bytes have been downloaded, which can in some cases lead to long-lived connections towards the streaming media server (for instance, Icecast). This can cause excessive traffic and connections toward such servers if their stream URL is, for example, posted to a large room with many Synapse instances with URL preview enabled. Version 1.52.0 implements a timeout mechanism which will terminate URL preview connections after 30 seconds. Since generating URL previews for media streams is not supported and always fails, 1.53.0 additionally implements an allow list for content types for which Synapse will even attempt to generate a URL preview. Upgrade to 1.53.0 to fully resolve the issue. As a workaround, turn off URL preview functionality by setting `url_preview_enabled: false` in the Synapse configuration file.

Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation

CVE-2022-31152 7.5 - High - September 02, 2022

Synapse is an open-source Matrix homeserver written and maintained by the Matrix.org Foundation. The Matrix specification specifies a list of [event authorization rules](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.2/rooms/v9/#authorization-rules) which must be checked when determining if an event should be accepted into a room. In versions of Synapse up to and including version 1.61.0, some of these rules are not correctly applied. An attacker could craft events which would be accepted by Synapse but not a spec-conformant server, potentially causing divergence in the room state between servers. Administrators of homeservers with federation enabled are advised to upgrade to version 1.62.0 or higher. Federation can be disabled by setting [`federation_domain_whitelist`](https://matrix-org.github.io/synapse/latest/usage/configuration/config_documentation.html#federation_domain_whitelist) to an empty list (`[]`) as a workaround.

Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions

Synapse is an open source home server implementation for the Matrix chat network

CVE-2022-31052 6.5 - Medium - June 28, 2022

Synapse is an open source home server implementation for the Matrix chat network. In versions prior to 1.61.1 URL previews of some web pages can exhaust the available stack space for the Synapse process due to unbounded recursion. This is sometimes recoverable and leads to an error for the request causing the problem, but in other cases the Synapse process may crash altogether. It is possible to exploit this maliciously, either by malicious users on the homeserver, or by remote users sending URLs that a local user's client may automatically request a URL preview for. Remote users are not able to exploit this directly, because the URL preview endpoint is authenticated. Deployments with `url_preview_enabled: false` set in configuration are not affected. Deployments with `url_preview_enabled: true` set in configuration **are** affected. Deployments with no configuration value set for `url_preview_enabled` are not affected, because the default is `false`. Administrators of homeservers with URL previews enabled are advised to upgrade to v1.61.1 or higher. Users unable to upgrade should set `url_preview_enabled` to false.

Stack Exhaustion

Synapse is a package for Matrix homeservers written in Python 3/Twisted

CVE-2021-41281 7.5 - High - November 23, 2021

Synapse is a package for Matrix homeservers written in Python 3/Twisted. Prior to version 1.47.1, Synapse instances with the media repository enabled can be tricked into downloading a file from a remote server into an arbitrary directory. No authentication is required for the affected endpoint. The last 2 directories and file name of the path are chosen randomly by Synapse and cannot be controlled by an attacker, which limits the impact. Homeservers with the media repository disabled are unaffected. Homeservers with a federation whitelist are also unaffected, since Synapse will check the remote hostname, including the trailing `../`s, against the whitelist. Server administrators should upgrade to 1.47.1 or later. Server administrators using a reverse proxy could, at the expense of losing media functionality, may block the certain endpoints as a workaround. Alternatively, non-containerized deployments can be adapted to use the hardened systemd config.

Directory traversal

Matrix is an ecosystem for open federated Instant Messaging and Voice over IP

CVE-2021-39164 3.1 - Low - August 31, 2021

Matrix is an ecosystem for open federated Instant Messaging and Voice over IP. In versions 1.41.0 and prior, unauthorised users can access the membership (list of members, with their display names) of a room if they know the ID of the room. The vulnerability is limited to rooms with `shared` history visibility. Furthermore, the unauthorised user must be using an account on a vulnerable homeserver that is in the room. Server administrators should upgrade to 1.41.1 or later in order to receive the patch. One workaround is available. Administrators of servers that use a reverse proxy could, with potentially unacceptable loss of functionality, block the endpoints: `/_matrix/client/r0/rooms/{room_id}/members` with `at` query parameter, and `/_matrix/client/unstable/rooms/{room_id}/members` with `at` query parameter.

Information Disclosure

Matrix is an ecosystem for open federated Instant Messaging and Voice over IP

CVE-2021-39163 3.1 - Low - August 31, 2021

Matrix is an ecosystem for open federated Instant Messaging and Voice over IP. In versions 1.41.0 and prior, unauthorised users can access the name, avatar, topic and number of members of a room if they know the ID of the room. This vulnerability is limited to homeservers where the vulnerable homeserver is in the room and untrusted users are permitted to create groups (communities). By default, only homeserver administrators can create groups. However, homeserver administrators can already access this information in the database or using the admin API. As a result, only homeservers where the configuration setting `enable_group_creation` has been set to `true` are impacted. Server administrators should upgrade to 1.41.1 or higher to patch the vulnerability. There are two potential workarounds. Server administrators can set `enable_group_creation` to `false` in their homeserver configuration (this is the default value) to prevent creation of groups by non-administrators. Administrators that are using a reverse proxy could, with partial loss of group functionality, block the endpoints `/_matrix/client/r0/groups/{group_id}/rooms` and `/_matrix/client/unstable/groups/{group_id}/rooms`.

Information Disclosure

Synapse is a Matrix reference homeserver written in python (pypi package matrix-synapse)

CVE-2021-29471 5.3 - Medium - May 11, 2021

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 1.33.2 "Push rules" can specify conditions under which they will match, including `event_match`, which matches event content against a pattern including wildcards. Certain patterns can cause very poor performance in the matching engine, leading to a denial-of-service when processing moderate length events. The issue is patched in version 1.33.2. A potential workaround might be to prevent users from making custom push rules, by blocking such requests at a reverse-proxy.

Insufficient Entropy

Synapse is a Matrix reference homeserver written in python (pypi package matrix-synapse)

CVE-2021-21392 6.3 - Medium - April 12, 2021

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 1.28.0 requests to user provided domains were not restricted to external IP addresses when transitional IPv6 addresses were used. Outbound requests to federation, identity servers, when calculating the key validity for third-party invite events, sending push notifications, and generating URL previews are affected. This could cause Synapse to make requests to internal infrastructure on dual-stack networks. See referenced GitHub security advisory for details and workarounds.

Open Redirect

Synapse is a Matrix reference homeserver written in python (pypi package matrix-synapse)

CVE-2021-21393 6.5 - Medium - April 12, 2021

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 1.28.0 Synapse is missing input validation of some parameters on the endpoints used to confirm third-party identifiers could cause excessive use of disk space and memory leading to resource exhaustion. Note that the groups feature is not part of the Matrix specification and the chosen maximum lengths are arbitrary. Not all clients might abide by them. Refer to referenced GitHub security advisory for additional details including workarounds.

Improper Input Validation

Synapse is a Matrix reference homeserver written in python (pypi package matrix-synapse)

CVE-2021-21394 6.5 - Medium - April 12, 2021

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 1.28.0 Synapse is missing input validation of some parameters on the endpoints used to confirm third-party identifiers could cause excessive use of disk space and memory leading to resource exhaustion. Note that the groups feature is not part of the Matrix specification and the chosen maximum lengths are arbitrary. Not all clients might abide by them. Refer to referenced GitHub security advisory for additional details including workarounds.

Improper Input Validation

Synapse is a Matrix reference homeserver written in python (pypi package matrix-synapse)

CVE-2021-21333 6.1 - Medium - March 26, 2021

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 1.27.0, the notification emails sent for notifications for missed messages or for an expiring account are subject to HTML injection. In the case of the notification for missed messages, this could allow an attacker to insert forged content into the email. The account expiry feature is not enabled by default and the HTML injection is not controllable by an attacker. This is fixed in version 1.27.0.

XSS

Synapse is a Matrix reference homeserver written in python (pypi package matrix-synapse)

CVE-2021-21332 8.2 - High - March 26, 2021

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 1.27.0, the password reset endpoint served via Synapse was vulnerable to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. The impact depends on the configuration of the domain that Synapse is deployed on, but may allow access to cookies and other browser data, CSRF vulnerabilities, and access to other resources served on the same domain or parent domains. This is fixed in version 1.27.0.

XSS

Synapse is a Matrix reference homeserver written in python (pypi package matrix-synapse)

CVE-2021-21274 6.5 - Medium - February 26, 2021

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, a malicious homeserver could redirect requests to their .well-known file to a large file. This can lead to a denial of service attack where homeservers will consume significantly more resources when requesting the .well-known file of a malicious homeserver. This affects any server which accepts federation requests from untrusted servers. Issue is resolved in version 1.25.0. As a workaround the `federation_domain_whitelist` setting can be used to restrict the homeservers communicated with over federation.

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

Synapse is a Matrix reference homeserver written in python (pypi package matrix-synapse)

CVE-2021-21273 6.1 - Medium - February 26, 2021

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 `federation_ip_range_blacklist` 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 `ip_range_blacklist` and `ip_range_whitelist` settings if more specific control is necessary.

Open Redirect

Matrix is an ecosystem for open federated Instant Messaging and VoIP

CVE-2020-26257 6.5 - Medium - December 09, 2020

Matrix is an ecosystem for open federated Instant Messaging and VoIP. Synapse is a reference "homeserver" implementation of Matrix. A malicious or poorly-implemented homeserver can inject malformed events into a room by specifying a different room id in the path of a `/send_join`, `/send_leave`, `/invite` or `/exchange_third_party_invite` request. This can lead to a denial of service in which future events will not be correctly sent to other servers over federation. This affects any server which accepts federation requests from untrusted servers. The Matrix Synapse reference implementation before version 1.23.1 the implementation is vulnerable to this injection attack. Issue is fixed in version 1.23.1. As a workaround homeserver administrators could limit access to the federation API to trusted servers (for example via `federation_domain_whitelist`).

Resource Exhaustion

Matrix Synapse before 1.20.0 erroneously permits non-standard NaN, Infinity, and -Infinity JSON values in fields of m.room.member events

CVE-2020-26890 7.5 - High - November 24, 2020

Matrix Synapse before 1.20.0 erroneously permits non-standard NaN, Infinity, and -Infinity JSON values in fields of m.room.member events, allowing remote attackers to execute a denial of service attack against the federation and common Matrix clients. If such a malformed event is accepted into the room's state, the impact is long-lasting and is not fixed by an upgrade to a newer version, requiring the event to be manually redacted instead. Since events are replicated to servers of other room members, the impact is not constrained to the server of the event sender.

Injection

AuthRestServlet in Matrix Synapse before 1.21.0 is vulnerable to XSS due to unsafe interpolation of the session GET parameter

CVE-2020-26891 6.1 - Medium - October 19, 2020

AuthRestServlet in Matrix Synapse before 1.21.0 is vulnerable to XSS due to unsafe interpolation of the session GET parameter. This allows a remote attacker to execute an XSS attack on the domain Synapse is hosted on, by supplying the victim user with a malicious URL to the /_matrix/client/r0/auth/*/fallback/web or /_matrix/client/unstable/auth/*/fallback/web Synapse endpoints.

XSS

Matrix Synapse before 1.5.0 mishandles signature checking on some federation APIs

CVE-2019-18835 9.8 - Critical - November 08, 2019

Matrix Synapse before 1.5.0 mishandles signature checking on some federation APIs. Events sent over /send_join, /send_leave, and /invite may not be correctly signed, or may not come from the expected servers.

Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity

An issue was discovered in Matrix Sydent before 1.0.3 and Synapse before 0.99.3.1

CVE-2019-11842 7.5 - High - May 09, 2019

An issue was discovered in Matrix Sydent before 1.0.3 and Synapse before 0.99.3.1. Random number generation is mishandled, which makes it easier for attackers to predict a Sydent authentication token or a Synapse random ID.

PRNG

Matrix Synapse before 0.34.0.1, when the macaroon_secret_key authentication parameter is not set, uses a predictable value to derive a secret key and other secrets which could

CVE-2019-5885 7.5 - High - March 21, 2019

Matrix Synapse before 0.34.0.1, when the macaroon_secret_key authentication parameter is not set, uses a predictable value to derive a secret key and other secrets which could allow remote attackers to impersonate users.

Key Management Errors

Matrix Synapse before 0.33.3.1

CVE-2018-16515 8.8 - High - September 18, 2018

Matrix Synapse before 0.33.3.1 allows remote attackers to spoof events and possibly have unspecified other impacts by leveraging improper transaction and event signature validation.

Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature

In Synapse before 0.31.2, unauthorised users

CVE-2018-12423 7.5 - High - June 14, 2018

In Synapse before 0.31.2, unauthorised users can hijack rooms when there is no m.room.power_levels event in force.

The on_get_missing_events function in handlers/federation.py in Matrix Synapse before 0.31.1 has a security bug in the get_missing_events federation API where event visibility rules were not applied correctly.

CVE-2018-12291 7.5 - High - June 13, 2018

The on_get_missing_events function in handlers/federation.py in Matrix Synapse before 0.31.1 has a security bug in the get_missing_events federation API where event visibility rules were not applied correctly.

Matrix Synapse before 0.28.1 is prone to a denial of service flaw where malicious events injected with depth = 2^63 - 1 render rooms unusable

CVE-2018-10657 7.5 - High - May 02, 2018

Matrix Synapse before 0.28.1 is prone to a denial of service flaw where malicious events injected with depth = 2^63 - 1 render rooms unusable, related to federation/federation_base.py and handlers/message.py, as exploited in the wild in April 2018.

Improper Input Validation