URL deny list bypass via oEmbed and image URLs when generating previews in Synapse

CVE-2023-32683

What is CVE-2023-32683?

Synapse is a Matrix protocol homeserver written in Python with the Twisted framework. A discovered oEmbed or image URL can bypass the url_preview_url_blacklist setting potentially allowing server side request forgery or bypassing network policies. Impact is limited to IP addresses allowed by the url_preview_ip_range_blacklist setting (by default this only allows public IPs) and by the limited information returned to the client: 1. For discovered oEmbed URLs, any non-JSON response or a JSON response which includes non-oEmbed information is discarded. 2. For discovered image URLs, any non-image response is discarded. Systems which have URL preview disabled (via the url_preview_enabled setting) or have not configured a url_preview_url_blacklist are not affected. This issue has been addressed in version 1.85.0. Users are advised to upgrade. User unable to upgrade may also disable URL previews.

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