Security Bulletin

Please keep it on topic

If you want to discuss UI or update thingies, please create a separate topic. Let’s keep things nice and on topic so everybody can benefit from the actual issue presented in this thread.

Thanks :+1:

14 Likes

FYI: The Security Bulletin https://alerts.home-assistant.io/#security_bulletin.markdown has a broken link https://alerts.home-assistant.io/docs/installation/updating/ .

There are a number of custom components offering integrations with banks, energy providers, crypto currency wallets, etc.
If a malicious actor wanted to, those integrations could be exploited to intentionally request (the user to enter), then exfiltrate those credentials allowing financial fraud (among other abuse).

Put aside whether you think it’s a good idea to link those services into a home automation platform, let alone use a custom component to do it (because if you think that’s a bad bad idea, I agree, but we’re not “everyone”).

So no, there are plenty of other potential attacks possible other than just turning your house into a haunted mansion.

(I’m not insinuating that any known component (custom or otherwise) does this, or that that this remediation covers that potential abuse. I’m just highlighting that the risk is potentially worse than just uncooperative home lighting)

1 Like

I mean I agree it probably is, but has this been officially confirmed anywhere or is this just hypothetical ?

Communicating security breaches is tricky, especially in open source. So I think we should indeed cut the devs some slack here and see how this unfolds. But transparency in communication is key. Commercial actors always get slammed (and rightfully so) for being opaque around security incidents. And lack of transparency will inevitably open the door to conspiracy theories, as clearly demonstrated by the current worldwide situation. That said, I’m sure that the devs will give us an updated situation when they sorted out things internally.

2 Likes

Read this:

3 Likes

34 posts were split to a new topic: Not about the Security bulleting

Any estimate to when more details will be available, so that I don’t have to keep checking the blog post? :slight_smile:

maybe I missed it in the heated discussion above , but, now we are all on the necessary version, is the idea of this restricted custom components access, part of the future core HA design?

I’m pretty sure they’ll accept PRs improving on that, without restricting functionality.

1 Like

Note that you need card-mod for that. Also, instead of using rest sensors, you might be able to use the updater or version integrations.

If you want to understand the specific attack that is the focus of this security bulletin, you only need to look at the “filter” patch to HA Core (linked above). This is not about a component intentionally sending data to an outside entity. This is about a component that might, unintentionally, fail to properly sanitize API requests coming in to HA Core allowing someone to access information which was not the intent of the component. Input sanitization is complex because it has many dimensions and some are not obvious to casual developers. This is open source so the only guarantee you have is if you, yourself study the code and make or suggest improvements to the API security model through PRs. You are deluding yourself if you think you can demand anything of open source developers. Suggest, yes; beg, yes; demand, well YMMV.

For all those that thought this was about components sending out data; I am amused at how many of you don’t seem to grasp that literally every single component in HA that communicates with an outside service is leaking information. If you don’t like that and want to prevent the leak then you need to put every IOT device, including HA, on a separate WiFi with no Internet access.

I’ll illustrate my point with a simple example that probably applies to every person on this thread. When you installed HA did you give it accurate location information? e.g. did you give it the actual GPS coordinates of your house? Well then the default weather component (met.no) or any other weather component you’ve enabled is “leaking” your exact location and the fact that you are running HA. Even if the first thing you did after you started HA for the first time was to disable met.no; there is a good chance that it sent your location to met.no at least one time.

Another example that has nothing to do with HA: If you have a recent roomba model with mapping and you let it on your WiFi with Internet access; then the roobma is leaking a floor plan of your house and could be leaking the contents of your house too. It has object detection and could report all the objects it recognizes; even people.

Disconnecting these things from the Internet or otherwise blocking the information “leak” greatly diminishes their value. So before you get out the pitchforks demanding changes, you need to think about the ramifications of what you are asking.

Last a bit of advice. You should not give HA access to any data that you consider sensitive. Anyone giving HA credentials to their financial institution is just, IMO, crazy. This really applies to every IOT device on the market; none of them are secure enough.

16 Likes

This is an interesting case study in how decisions made months, even years prior can have lasting effects down the road. When I started using Home Assistant, I opted for the ‘Venv on a VM’ route because, for me, it was far more powerful and reliable than Hassio on a Raspberry Pi with an SD Card. Here we are, years later, and Supervised HA now meets my standards for use while the venv languishes behind, mainly because upgrading is very, very manual. (I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve broken my venv because python wasn’t upgraded correctly.)

But I digress… I still expect the devs to tell us which custom components they’ve identified as suspect so that we may take appropriate action. Updating HA isn’t the only way to address this problem, especially if the problem exists because of a custom component written by an unscrupulous programmer.

1 Like

A cynic may suggest that tinging this update with a security colouring encourages updating :slight_smile:

1 Like

If you are doubting the name of your installation method you are using:

Home Assistant Menubar -> Configuration -> Information

It will be the second item in the list: Installation Type

Please note! No matter which installation type you are running. All of them include (or is) the Home Assistant Core. Which is the thing one should upgrade as announced in this security bulletin. So this security bulletin applies to EVERY installation of Home Assistant (not matter the type).

2 Likes

Dear team,

Thanks for finding and solving this issue so quickly and working hard to keep us all safe!!

Regards.

2 Likes

Hi guys, thank you for this information. I have updated. However I’m a little bit concerned about users who do not read every day the community. In fact I always have been missing a feature that updates are displayed automatically in the notifications.
Yes, I have written an automation to do so, but I am pretty sure the most people are not doing this. This topics shows even more how important it is.
Off topic, If you are going to think about it, showing all kind of updates would be appreciated (hacs, hassos, supervisor, core)

Nothing about his post insinuated even remotely what you started waffling on about. Wind yourself in. I think everyone is equally eager to understand what the issue is.

1 Like

Would someone close this damn thread. It is overpopulated by fools (not directed at the poster I am replying to)

7 Likes

2 posts were split to a new topic: Xiaomi bluetooth Temperature/Humidity sensors

6 posts were split to a new topic: mDNS activity