Skip to content

Session fixation

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jan 8, 2020 in pow-auth/pow • Updated Jan 11, 2023

Package

erlang pow (Erlang)

Affected versions

< 1.0.16

Patched versions

1.0.16

Description

Impact

The use of Plug.Session in Pow.Plug.Session is susceptible to session fixation attacks if a persistent session store is used for Plug.Session, such as Redis or a database. Cookie store, which is used in most Phoenix apps, doesn't have this vulnerability.

Workarounds

Call Plug.Conn.configure_session(conn, renew: true) periodically and after privilege change. A custom authorization plug can be written where the create/3 method should return the conn only after Plug.Conn.configure_session/2 have been called on it.

References

pow-auth/pow@578ffd3
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Session_fixation

References

@danschultzer danschultzer published to pow-auth/pow Jan 8, 2020
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Apr 12, 2022
Reviewed Apr 12, 2022
Last updated Jan 11, 2023

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(53rd percentile)

Weaknesses

Session Fixation

Authenticating a user, or otherwise establishing a new user session, without invalidating any existing session identifier gives an attacker the opportunity to steal authenticated sessions. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2020-5205

GHSA ID

GHSA-v2wf-c3j6-wpvw

Source code

Dependabot alerts are not supported on some or all of the ecosystems on this advisory.

Learn more about GitHub language support

Loading Checking history
See something to contribute? Suggest improvements for this vulnerability.