[SECURITY] Use HTTPS to resolve dependencies in Maven Build

[JLLeitschuh]

• Want to take over the Java ecosystem? All you need is a MITM!
• Update: Want to take over the Java ecosystem? All you need is a MITM!

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This is a security fix for a vulnerability in your Apache Maven pom.xml file(s).

The build files indicate that this project is resolving dependencies over HTTP instead of HTTPS.
This leaves your build vulnerable to allowing a Man in the Middle (MITM) attackers to execute arbitrary code on your or your computer or CI/CD system.

This vulnerability has a CVSS v3.0 Base Score of 8.1/10.

POC code has existed since 2014 to maliciously compromise a JAR file in-flight.
MITM attacks against HTTP are increasingly common, for example Comcast is known to have done it to their own users.

This contribution is a part of a submission to the GitHub Security Lab Bug Bounty program.

Detecting this and Future Vulnerabilities

This vulnerability was automatically detected by LGTM.com using this CodeQL Query.

As of September 2019 LGTM.com and Semmle are officially a part of GitHub.

You can automatically detect future vulnerabilities like this by enabling the free (for open-source) LGTM App.

I'm not an employee of GitHub nor of Semmle, I'm simply a user of LGTM.com and an open-source security researcher.

Source

Yes, this contribution was automatically generated, however, the code to generate this PR was lovingly hand crafted to bring this security fix to your repository.

The source code that generated and submitted this PR can be found here:
JLLeitschuh/bulk-security-pr-generator

Opting-Out

If you'd like to opt-out of future automated security vulnerability fixes like this, please consider adding a file called
.github/GH-ROBOTS.txt to your repository with the line:

User-agent: JLLeitschuh/bulk-security-pr-generator
Disallow: *

This bot will respect the ROBOTS.txt format for future contributions.

Alternatively, if this project is no longer actively maintained, consider archiving the repository.

CLA Requirements

This section is only relevant if your project requires contributors to sign a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) for external contributions.

It is unlikely that I'll be able to directly sign CLAs. However, all contributed commits are already automatically signed-off.

The meaning of a signoff depends on the project, but it typically certifies that committer has the rights to submit this work under the same license and agrees to a Developer Certificate of Origin
(see https://developercertificate.org/ for more information).

- Git Commit Signoff documentation

If signing your organization's CLA is a strict-requirement for merging this contribution, please feel free to close this PR.

Tracking

All PR's generated as part of this fix are tracked here:
JLLeitschuh/bulk-security-pr-generator#2

[JLLeitschuh]

??

[elharo]

Please don't autofile PRs against repos you don't follow and code you don't understand. It wastes everyone's time.

[gmshake]

@JLLeitschuh It's good to employ HTTPS to prevent MITM on normal scenes such as developing / building / packaging during maven dependency resolving, but it make NO sense when we retrieve dependencies from localhost.

For short, maven-enforcer-maven itself hosts a repository contains dependencies required during integration test, the dependencies for tests are retrieved from local repository, thus it is not vulnerable as you described.

[JLLeitschuh]

Please don't autofile PRs against repos you don't follow and code you don't understand. It wastes everyone's time.

This project was part of the GitHub Security Lab Bug Bounty program and I was awarded a $4k bounty for the automatic creation of 1,596 PRs. Many of these PRs have just been merged with maintainers thanking me.

Looking at the code here, I agree that this change makes no sense. I'm sory for wasting your time on this one.

Thanks for the explanation.

[olamy]

@JLLeitschuh good to hear you earn $4k to waste people time.... 😳

[JLLeitschuh]

😂

Most people are appreciative. But most of the time, it actually fixes a vulnerability. This time wasn't th case.