Hi Colin, We did not find a specific security vulnerability. Our customer had auditors in their environment, and they identified Kafka Connect as out of compliance with their particular standards, something that happens all the time for REST-based applications. What these security auditors expected Kafka Connect to be able to do was tune the response. As Kafka Connect could not provide this functionality, I'm proposing this KIP. Does that make sense? Should I still go through the process of a security disclosure?
Our particular need was around suppressing exceptions in the "public" response, as Kafka Connect was passing these exceptions without authentication, they became a public endpoint upon which the auditors could fuzz, and show it being out of compliance. Keeping these exceptions in the logs, as proposed in the KIP, makes sense to me as an operator. I only mention PCI-DSS as this was the kind of environment my customer had that was making the request for being able to tune the response. Thanks! Connor --- Connor Penhale | Enterprise Architect, OpenLogic (https://openlogic.com/) Perforce (https://www.perforce.com/) Support: +1 866.399.6736 On 4/3/20, 3:24 PM, "Colin McCabe" <cmcc...@apache.org> wrote: Also, if you do find a security issue, the process to follow is here: https://kafka.apache.org/project-security.html . best, Colin On Fri, Apr 3, 2020, at 14:20, Colin McCabe wrote: > Hi Connor, > > If we are putting security-sensitive information into REST responses, > that is a bug that needs to be fixed, not worked around with a > configuration option. Do you have an example of security-sensitive > information appearing in the exception text? Why do you feel that > PCI-DSS requires this change? > > By the way, the same concern applies to log messages. We do not log > sensitive information such as passwords to the log4j output. If you > know of that happening somewhere, please file a bug so it can be fixed. > > best, > Colin > > > On Fri, Apr 3, 2020, at 12:56, Connor Penhale wrote: > > Hi Chris! > > > > Thanks for your feedback! I'll number my responses to your questions / thoughts. > > > > 1. Apologies on that lack of clarity! I settled on "Detailed exception > > information has been suppressed. Please see logs." > > (https://github.com/apache/kafka/pull/8355/files#diff-64c265986e7bbe40cdd79f831e961907R34). Should I update the KIP to reflect what I've already thought about? It's my first one, not sure what the process should be for editing. > > > > 2. I was unaware of the REST extensions! I'll see if I can implement > > the same behavior as a REST extension. I agree that the KIP still has > > merit, regardless of the feasibility of the extension, but in regards > > to the 5th thought, this might make that decision easier. > > > > 3. I agree with your suggestion here. Absolutely ready to take the > > community feedback on what makes sense here. > > > > 4. I should note that while I emphasized uncaught exceptions, I mean > > all exceptions handled by the ExceptionMapper, including > > ConnectRestExceptions. An example of this is here: > > https://github.com/apache/kafka/pull/8355/files#diff-64c265986e7bbe40cdd79f831e961907R46 > > > > 5. I didn't know how specific I should get if I had already taken a > > stab at implementing! I'm happy to edit this in whatever way we want to > > go about it. > > > > Let me know if anyone has any other questions or feedback! > > > > > > Thanks! > > Connor > > > > On 4/2/20, 3:58 PM, "Christopher Egerton" <chr...@confluent.io> wrote: > > > > Hi Connor, > > > > Great stuff! I generally like being able to see the stack trace of an > > exception directly via the REST API but can definitely understand the > > security concerns here. I've got a few questions/remarks about the KIP and > > would be interested in your thoughts: > > > > 1. The KIP mentions a SUPRESSED_EXCEPTION_MESSAGE, but doesn't actually > > outline what this message would actually be. It'd be great to see the > > actual message in the KIP since people may have thoughts on what it should > > be and want to comment on it as part of this discussion. > > > > 2. In the "Rejected Alternatives" section, an Nginx proxy is > > mentioned as > > one possible way to filter out stack traces from the REST API. It > > seems > > like a Connect REST extension ( > > > > https://kafka.apache.org/24/javadoc/index.html?org/apache/kafka/connect/rest/ConnectRestExtension.html) > > would be a better alternative than an Nginx proxy; had you > > considered > > utilizing one? I still think this KIP is worthwhile and a REST > > extension > > shouldn't be necessary in order to lock down the REST API this way, > > but it > > might be worth calling out as an alternative and perhaps even a > > workaround > > in cases where users are stuck on a given version of Connect and > > can't > > upgrade to 2.6 (or whichever version this KIP lands on) any time > > soon. > > > > 3. The "error.rest.response.message.detail.enabled" property is a bit of a > > mouthful; it'd be great if we could come up with something more succinct. > > What do you think about something like "rest.response.stack.traces"? > > > > 4. The KIP is targeted at stack traces for uncaught exceptions, but it's > > also possible that stack traces get exposed in the REST API when querying > > the status of a connector or one of its tasks. Was this intentional? If so, > > it'd be great to call out why that kind of filtering is not required in the > > "Rejected Alternatives" section, and if not, it's probably not too late to > > consider modifying the KIP to cover those cases as well. > > > > 5. The KIP mentions creating a new, separate exception mapper class. This > > seems like more of an implementation detail and something that can be > > decided on during code review; unless it's critical to the functionality > > that the KIP aims to accomplish, I'd suggest leaving that part out since it > > shouldn't affect the impact on users of the Connect framework. > > > > Thanks for the KIP, looking forward to seeing this happen! > > > > Cheers, > > > > Chris > > > > On Thu, Apr 2, 2020 at 11:01 AM Connor Penhale <cpenh...@perforce.com> > > wrote: > > > > > Hello All! > > > > > > I’ve created the following KIP: > > > > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/KIP-587:+Suppress+detailed+responses+for+handled+exceptions+in+security-sensitive+environments > > > > > > The PR that originated this discussion, is here: > > > https://github.com/apache/kafka/pull/8355 It is based on 2.0, > > but I > > > would be working on Kafka Connect in 2.6 to get this behavior > > changed to > > > the community’s preference. > > > > > > Looking forward to working with everyone! > > > > > > Thanks! > > > Connor > > > --- > > > Connor Penhale | Enterprise Architect, OpenLogic > > (https://openlogic.com/) > > > Perforce (https://www.perforce.com/) > > > Support: +1 866.399.6736 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This e-mail may contain information that is privileged or > > confidential. 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