TYPO3-CORE-SA-2022-013: Weak Authentication in Frontend Login

Categories: Development, TYPO3 CMS Created by Oliver Hader
It has been discovered that TYPO3 CMS is susceptible to weak authentication.

Problem Description

Restricting frontend login to specific users, organized in different storage folders (partitions), can be bypassed. A potential attacker might use this ambiguity in usernames to get access to a different account - however, credentials must be known to the adversary.

Solution

Update to TYPO3 versions 8.7.49 ELTS, 9.5.38 ELTS, 10.4.33, 11.5.20, 12.1.1 that fix the problem described above.

Strong security defaults - Manual actions required

HTTP parameter pid has been enforced to be HMAC-signed, which might cause trouble in custom HTML templates or individual authentication services. Releases of TYPO3 versions 10.4.34 and 11.5.21 introduced the new feature flag security.frontend.enforceLoginSigning to adjust this behavior.

The technical changes that introduced the HMAC-signature are available in our review system for in-depth analysis.

Thanks to TYPO3 security team member Torben Hansen who reported this issue and to TYPO3 core & security team member Oliver Hader who fixed the issue.

General Advice

Follow the recommendations that are given in the TYPO3 Security Guide. Please subscribe to the typo3-announce mailing list.

General Note

All security related code changes are tagged so that you can easily look them up in our review system.