Re: [Wikitech-l] [Social-media] Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia sites

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Pine W

21 Apr 2015 21 Apr '15

9:41 a.m.

Thanks for your work on this, Chris. Forwarding to Wikitech-l. Pine On Apr 20, 2015 4:58 PM, "Chris Steipp" <csteipp(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

On Apr 20, 2015 4:13 PM, "Andrew Sherman" <asherman(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hello Everyone, We just published "Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia

sites" to the blog. URL:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/20/improving-security-for-our-users/ Thanks to Chris for writing and helping us edit this post. Below are some proposed social media messages. Tweak as needed. Twitter We teamed up with @iSECPartners and @OpenTechFund to assess the security

of our sites. Check out the report here [link]

FB/G+ We teamed up with iSEC Partners to assess the security of our sites and

protect the privacy of our users. Their engineers developed attacks against the current version of MediaWiki to identify security flaws, in a new report sponsored by the Open Technology Fund. [link] Maybe just "MediaWiki" instead of "the current version of MediaWiki", since we did a release to specifically fix issues that they found. Might confuse some people as is.

Thanks, -- Andrew Sherman Digital Communications | Wikimedia Foundation E: asherman(a)wikimedia.org WMF: ASherman (WMF)

_______________________________________________ Social-media mailing list Social-media(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/social-media

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Strainu

27 Apr 27 Apr

11:35 p.m.

New subject: [Social-media] Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia sites

I personally find one of the suggestions in the report worrying: "Eliminate custom CSS/JavaScript. iSEC found multiple issues with the custom JavaScript system. This system appears to pose significant risk for relatively small benefit. As such, iSEC recommends that Wikimedia Foundation deprecate this functionality and allow users instead to customize their experience on the client side using browser extensions such as Greasemonkey or Tampermonkey." This is related to one of the problems identified by the team: "Users can inspect each other's personal JavaScript" While the custom JS is used by a relatively small number of users, the ability to learn and copy another user's scripts has played an important part in the development(and maintenance) of scripts that are now considered essential by many Wikimedians (twinkle and wikied come to mind). Furthermore, replacing those script with Greasemonkey scripts would lead to a "black market" of Wiki-scripts shared through channels external to our sites. Those scripts would be even more prone to social engineering attacks and could endanger our user's security. I would like to know if the WMF is indeed considering completely dropping the custom JS feature and if so, what is the timeline for this change? Thanks, Strainu 2015-04-21 4:41 GMT+03:00 Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

Thanks for your work on this, Chris. Forwarding to Wikitech-l. Pine On Apr 20, 2015 4:58 PM, "Chris Steipp" <csteipp(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

On Apr 20, 2015 4:13 PM, "Andrew Sherman" <asherman(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hello Everyone, We just published "Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia

sites" to the blog. URL:

of our sites. Check out the report here [link]

FB/G+ We teamed up with iSEC Partners to assess the security of our sites and

Thanks, -- Andrew Sherman Digital Communications | Wikimedia Foundation E: asherman(a)wikimedia.org WMF: ASherman (WMF)

_______________________________________________ Social-media mailing list Social-media(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/social-media

_______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Magnus Manske

11:41 p.m.

New subject: [Social-media] Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia sites

Let me just say that removing custom JS from Wikimedia sites would cause the mother of all shitstorms amongst the "old hands" editors, including Yours Truly. It would make the German Wikipedia resistance to the Media Viewer seem like a mild, slightly fragrant breeze. I do not believe the Foundation would actually consider doing this. On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 4:36 PM Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Thanks for your work on this, Chris. Forwarding to Wikitech-l. Pine On Apr 20, 2015 4:58 PM, "Chris Steipp" <csteipp(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: > > On Apr 20, 2015 4:13 PM, "Andrew Sherman" <asherman(a)wikimedia.org>

wrote:

> > > > Hello Everyone, > > > > We just published "Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia > sites" to the blog. URL: > > > >

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/20/improving-security-for-our-users/

> > > > Thanks to Chris for writing and helping us edit this post. > > > > Below are some proposed social media messages. Tweak as needed. > > > > Twitter > > > > We teamed up with @iSECPartners and @OpenTechFund to assess the

security

> of our sites. Check out the report here [link] > > > > FB/G+ > > > > We teamed up with iSEC Partners to assess the security of our sites

and

> protect the privacy of our users. Their engineers developed attacks

against

Thanks, -- Andrew Sherman Digital Communications | Wikimedia Foundation E: asherman(a)wikimedia.org WMF: ASherman (WMF)

_______________________________________________ Social-media mailing list Social-media(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/social-media

_______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Bartosz Dziewoński

11:50 p.m.

New subject: [Social-media] Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia sites

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 17:41:06 +0200, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

...

Let me just say that removing custom JS from Wikimedia sites would cause the mother of all shitstorms

Indeed, I think everyone is aware of that. All activity related to publishing this report (and fixing the bugs mentioned in it) was tracked on https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T85862 (which has been now made public, it used to be private), which doesn't seem to be linked in the blog post. Two subtasks related to user JS system are https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T85855 and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T85856 , you can read the discussion there. No one was seriously considering getting rid of the system. -- Bartosz Dziewoński

Chris Steipp

11:51 p.m.

New subject: [Social-media] Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia sites

Hi Strainu, We were trying to balance how much data vs summary information to give to people, but you can find the issues vs. resolution table here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Security_Team/Check/iSEC_Assessmen… For the issue you pointed out in particular, we have https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T85856 where you can follow the discussion. The end result was that this was a low severity issue, we're definitely not going to do away with user javascript, instead we may add a warning if we can find a useful UX experience for the user. On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 8:35 AM, Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

wrote:

> > > > Hello Everyone, > > > > We just published "Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia > sites" to the blog. URL: > > > >

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/20/improving-security-for-our-users/

security

> of our sites. Check out the report here [link] > > > > FB/G+ > > > > We teamed up with iSEC Partners to assess the security of our sites

and

> protect the privacy of our users. Their engineers developed attacks

against

Thanks, -- Andrew Sherman Digital Communications | Wikimedia Foundation E: asherman(a)wikimedia.org WMF: ASherman (WMF)

_______________________________________________ Social-media mailing list Social-media(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/social-media

_______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Strainu

28 Apr 28 Apr

5:32 a.m.

New subject: [Social-media] Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia sites

2015-04-27 18:51 GMT+03:00 Chris Steipp <csteipp(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:

...

Hi Strainu,

Thanks for the additional information Chris!

...

We were trying to balance how much data vs summary information to give to people, but you can find the issues vs. resolution table here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Security_Team/Check/iSEC_Assessmen…

I was happy to see that some of the issues found by iSEC was previously identified in-house. However, I couldn't help noticing that https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T64685 lingered for almost an year (or more, I'm not sure if the bugzilla import kept the dates) and the patch was only merged after this report found the bug as well. We all know the WMF is slow in merging patches, especially from outsiders, but shouldn't you have *some* guidelines (or preferably rules) on the time that a security bug can stay opened? I'm not trying to start yet another endless fight between WMF staff and the community, but the tendency in the last few years has been for the researchers to release the vulnerabilities after a certain time regardless if the software has been patched or not. Seeing MW exploits in the wild and knowing that developers had a chance to fix them and didn't does not help WMF's image. Regards, Strainu

...

For the issue you pointed out in particular, we have https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T85856 where you can follow the discussion. The end result was that this was a low severity issue, we're definitely not going to do away with user javascript, instead we may add a warning if we can find a useful UX experience for the user. On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 8:35 AM, Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> wrote:

wrote:

> > > > Hello Everyone, > > > > We just published "Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia > sites" to the blog. URL: > > > >

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/20/improving-security-for-our-users/

security

> of our sites. Check out the report here [link] > > > > FB/G+ > > > > We teamed up with iSEC Partners to assess the security of our sites

and

> protect the privacy of our users. Their engineers developed attacks

against

the current version of MediaWiki to identify security flaws, in a new report sponsored by the Open Technology Fund. [link] Maybe just "MediaWiki" instead of "the current version of MediaWiki", since we did a release to specifically fix issues that they found. Might confuse some people as is. > > Thanks, > -- > Andrew Sherman > Digital Communications | Wikimedia Foundation > > E: asherman(a)wikimedia.org > WMF: ASherman (WMF) _______________________________________________ Social-media mailing list Social-media(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/social-media

_______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Chris Steipp

6:16 a.m.

New subject: [Social-media] Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia sites

On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 2:32 PM, Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

2015-04-27 18:51 GMT+03:00 Chris Steipp <csteipp(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:

Hi Strainu,

Thanks for the additional information Chris!

We were trying to balance how much data vs summary information to give to people, but you can find the issues vs. resolution table here:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Security_Team/Check/iSEC_Assessmen… I was happy to see that some of the issues found by iSEC was previously identified in-house. However, I couldn't help noticing that https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T64685 lingered for almost an year (or more, I'm not sure if the bugzilla import kept the dates) and the patch was only merged after this report found the bug as well. We all know the WMF is slow in merging patches, especially from outsiders, but shouldn't you have *some* guidelines (or preferably rules) on the time that a security bug can stay opened?

Hi Stainu, I specifically addressed this in the "What did we learn?" section of the blog post. We are hiring to make sure we can address issues faster. In this particular case, if we had any indication that the issue was known outside the WMF, or being abused, I would have raised the priority and addressed it ahead of other issues that I'm working on.

...

I'm not trying to start yet another endless fight between WMF staff and the community, but the tendency in the last few years has been for the researchers to release the vulnerabilities after a certain time regardless if the software has been patched or not. Seeing MW exploits in the wild and knowing that developers had a chance to fix them and didn't does not help WMF's image. Regards, Strainu

warning if we can find a useful UX experience for the user. On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 8:35 AM, Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I personally find one of the suggestions in the report worrying: > > "Eliminate custom CSS/JavaScript. iSEC found multiple issues with the > custom JavaScript system. > This system appears to pose significant risk for relatively small > benefit. As such, iSEC recommends > that Wikimedia Foundation deprecate this functionality and allow users > instead to customize their > experience on the client side using browser extensions such as > Greasemonkey or Tampermonkey." > > This is related to one of the problems identified by the team: "Users > can inspect each other's personal JavaScript" > > While the custom JS is used by a relatively small number of users, the > ability to learn and copy another user's scripts has played an > important part in the development(and maintenance) of scripts that are > now considered essential by many Wikimedians (twinkle and wikied come > to mind). > > Furthermore, replacing those script with Greasemonkey scripts would > lead to a "black market" of Wiki-scripts shared through channels > external to our sites. Those scripts would be even more prone to > social engineering attacks and could endanger our user's security. > > I would like to know if the WMF is indeed considering completely > dropping the custom JS feature and if so, what is the timeline for > this change? > > Thanks, > Strainu > > 2015-04-21 4:41 GMT+03:00 Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com>om>: > > Thanks for your work on this, Chris. > > > > Forwarding to Wikitech-l. > > > > Pine > > On Apr 20, 2015 4:58 PM, "Chris Steipp" <csteipp(a)wikimedia.org>

wrote:

> > > >> > >> On Apr 20, 2015 4:13 PM, "Andrew Sherman" <asherman(a)wikimedia.org> > wrote: > >> > > >> > Hello Everyone, > >> > > >> > We just published "Improving the security of our users on Wikimedia > >> sites" to the blog. URL: > >> > > >> > > https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/20/improving-security-for-our-users/ > >> > > >> > Thanks to Chris for writing and helping us edit this post. > >> > > >> > Below are some proposed social media messages. Tweak as needed. > >> > > >> > Twitter > >> > > >> > We teamed up with @iSECPartners and @OpenTechFund to assess the > security > >> of our sites. Check out the report here [link] > >> > > >> > FB/G+ > >> > > >> > We teamed up with iSEC Partners to assess the security of our sites > and > >> protect the privacy of our users. Their engineers developed attacks > against > >> the current version of MediaWiki to identify security flaws, in a new > >> report sponsored by the Open Technology Fund. [link] > >> > >> Maybe just "MediaWiki" instead of "the current version of MediaWiki", > >> since we did a release to specifically fix issues that they found.

Might

> confuse some people as is. > > > > > Thanks, > > -- > > Andrew Sherman > > Digital Communications | Wikimedia Foundation > > > > E: asherman(a)wikimedia.org > > WMF: ASherman (WMF) > > _______________________________________________ > Social-media mailing list > Social-media(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/social-media > > _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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Bartosz Dziewoński
Chris Steipp
Magnus Manske
Pine W
Strainu