Skip to content

LG-746 Return 400 error for invalid String params#2648

Merged
monfresh merged 2 commits intomasterfrom
mb-lg-746
Nov 7, 2018
Merged

LG-746 Return 400 error for invalid String params#2648
monfresh merged 2 commits intomasterfrom
mb-lg-746

Conversation

@monfresh
Copy link
Contributor

@monfresh monfresh commented Nov 7, 2018

Why:
When a controller uses Strong Parameters such as:
params.require(:user).permit(:email), the user param is assumed to
be a Hash, but it's easy for a pentester (for example) to set the
user param to a String instead, which by default would raise a 500
error because the String class doesn't respond to permit.

How:
To get around that, we monkey patched the Ruby String class to raise an
instance of ActionController::ParameterMissing, which will return a
400 error. 500 errors can potentially page people in the middle of the
night, whereas 400 errors don't.

Note that Devise handles this scenario gracefully in SessionsController,
but because it determines whether or not to call permit based on
whether or not the object responds to permit, the Devise code will
end up calling permit because all Strings respond to it now after our
monkey patch. This is why the invalid_sign_in_params_spec had to
change.

Hi! Before submitting your PR for review, and/or before merging it, please
go through the checklists below. These represent the more critical elements
of our code quality guidelines. The rest of the list can be found in
CONTRIBUTING.md

  • When adding a new controller that requires the user to be fully
    authenticated, make sure to add before_action :confirm_two_factor_authenticated
    as the first callback.

  • Unsafe migrations are implemented over several PRs and over several
    deploys to avoid production errors. The strong_migrations gem
    will warn you about unsafe migrations and has great step-by-step instructions
    for various scenarios.

  • Indexes were added if necessary. This article provides a good overview
    of indexes in Rails.

  • Verified that the changes don't affect other apps (such as the dashboard)

  • When relevant, a rake task is created to populate the necessary DB columns
    in the various environments right before deploying, taking into account the users
    who might not have interacted with this column yet (such as users who have not
    set a password yet)

  • Migrations against existing tables have been tested against a copy of the
    production database. See LG-228 Make migrations safer and more resilient #2127 for an example when a migration caused deployment
    issues. In that case, all the migration did was add a new column and an index to
    the Users table, which might seem innocuous.

  • The changes are compatible with data that was encrypted with the old code.

  • GET requests are not vulnerable to CSRF attacks (i.e. they don't change
    state or result in destructive behavior).

  • When adding user data to the session, use the user_session helper
    instead of the session helper so the data does not persist beyond the user's
    session.

  • Tests added for this feature/bug

  • Prefer feature/integration specs over controller specs

  • When adding code that reads data, write tests for nil values, empty strings,
    and invalid inputs.

**Why**:
When a controller uses Strong Parameters such as:
`params.require(:user).permit(:email)`, the `user` param is assumed to
be a Hash, but it's easy for a pentester (for example) to set the
`user` param to a String instead, which by default would raise a 500
error because the String class doesn't respond to `permit`.

**How**:
To get around that, we monkey patched the Ruby String class to raise an
instance of `ActionController::ParameterMissing`, which will return a
400 error. 500 errors can potentially page people in the middle of the
night, whereas 400 errors don't.

Note that Devise handles this scenario gracefully in SessionsController,
but because it determines whether or not to call `permit` based on
whether or not the object responds to `permit`, the Devise code will
end up calling `permit` because all Strings respond to it now after our
monkey patch. This is why the `invalid_sign_in_params_spec` had to
change.
@monfresh monfresh merged commit b96b6e8 into master Nov 7, 2018
@monfresh monfresh deleted the mb-lg-746 branch November 7, 2018 20:35
zachmargolis added a commit that referenced this pull request Jan 11, 2023
zachmargolis added a commit that referenced this pull request Jan 11, 2023
Stop logging exceptions to NewRelic for error messages like
> param is missing or the value is empty: #permit called on String

Reverts our custom monkeypatch to add String#permit that throws this
error intentionally, adds regression spec to make sure "fuzzing" input
does not result in exception noise for us

* Revert "LG-746 Return 400 error for invalid String params (#2648)"

This reverts commit b96b6e8.

[skip changelog]
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

2 participants