Crowd security updates

[Edmon Uyan]

Hi there,

My first time to post regarding my setup. Basically I have the following set up on premise.

• Crowd 2.8.3 (Build:#648 - 2015-06-01)
• JIRA (v7.4.2#74004-sha1:586975d)
• Confluence 5.5.2
• Stash v3.8.0

Upon closer inspection at my deployment, my Crowd is using Struts, and worst, it's vulnerable. I could be using perhaps Struts version 2.3.29.

It states here that Struts can be updated separately without impacting Crowd. However, upon testing, Crowd stopped working after updating struts only. So my only option is to upgrade Crowd to a non-vulnerable version.

There have been a couple of major security updates with Struts that have been released even after the advisory above, with the latest one released only a few days ago which requires me to update to the latest Struts 2.5.16.

Now, I am at a dilemma, that I may need to upgrade both Crowd as well as Struts!

I am however, hesitant to upgrade/patch as it might break or change the way my users (JIRA, Confluence, Stash) operate which I would not want to take risk at.

My question is:

• Will upgrading Crowd not impose any operational changes that the users will have to adjust to? They operate only in JIRA/Confluence/Stash
• Follow-up to my question above... which version of Crowd do I apply that can support Struts 2.5.16?

Thank you.

Regards,

Edmon

[Marcin Kempa]

Hi @Edmon Uyan,

In general I would suggest relying on the product releases with security updates. While the CWD-4879 ticket mentioned upgrading the struts library only, without upgrading Crowd itself, this was mentioned as a hot fix and may not work with other versions of Crowd and Struts (a specially with major and minor version changes).

Currently Crowd runs on Struts 2.5.13 and it is not using the Struts REST plugin. Therefore it is not vulnerable to the issues such as S2-056, S2-055 or S2-054.

Upgrading Crowd to the latest version should not impose any operational change for the users to adjust to. However in general we suggest checking the upgrade process on staging environment and checking features you rely on.

Hope that helps,

Marcin Kempa

[Edmon Uyan]

hi @Marcin Kempa,

Thank you for that insight.

When you mentioned current Crowd, may i know what version are you referring to?

edited: it's Crowd version 3.1 that you are referring to that has Struts 2.5.13

Another thing, if I only upgrade Crowd, will the remaining apps (JIRA, Stash, Confluence) keep on working without having to upgrade them?

Thank you!

[Marcin Kempa]

Hi @Edmon Uyan,

That's correct I was referring to Crowd 3.1.x (3.1.3 being the latest one at the moment) 

Regarding the compatibility, there were no breaking changes in the API between Crowd and other products so to my best knowledge Crowd should work with the products versions you've mentioned. Your Stash / Bitbucket Server version is pretty old though and it reached the EOL same with Confluence, I suggest upgrading to more recent ones.

Best Regards,

Marcin Kempa

[Edmon Uyan]

Hi @Marcin Kempa,

My team was able to upgrade crowd. As it turned out, the new setup states that the maintenance license already expired and that we are running an evaluation version. Any way to allow us to continue using the license of the original setup on this upgraded one?

Also, I am doing a penetration test and found that my Crowd is vulnerable to clickjacking. It asks me to use X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN. Will try this as well and let you know of the result.

[Marcin Kempa]

Hi @Edmon Uyan,

That's interesting as this banner should be enabled when the license is evaluation type. Can you double check the license added to this instance?

Regarding clickjacking issue, this was resolved in Crowd 2.9.1, here is the issue where we were tracking it https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CWD-4595

Best Regards,

Marcin Kempa

[Edmon Uyan]

Hi@Marcin Kempa,

I guess I will not be needing to specify this host header once I upgraded my Crowd to the latest release.

For the license, is it possible to apply the license I had with the previous Crowd deployment?

Regards,

Edmon Uyan

[Marcin Kempa]

Hi @Edmon Uyan,

Regarding the license for your testing environment you can use a developer license that can be accessed in your license details in https://my.atlassian.com

Best Regards,

Marcin Kempa

[Edmon Uyan]

Hi @Marcin Kempa,

I am now at my license portal. I can only see New Evaluation License  |  New SourceTree License.

Wonder which shall i choose to get a developer license?

Thank you.

Regards,

Edmon Uyan

[Edmon Uyan]

Just want to confirm also, that if the trial license for this deployment of crowd expire, will the users fail to authenticate?

[Edmon Uyan]

Struts seem to have been found to be vulnerable again. It is recommended to upgrade to Struts 2.5.17 or 2.3.35.

Wonder if the current Crowd is vulnerable with this?

[Moses Thomas]

@Marcin Kempa   Hi, I would like to  the disable this  red warning  is  it is  annoying :/ at least  should  be a reminder  to  ask  you  if you  would like to  keep  seeing  this message,  it has been like  that now why red ?

[Marcin Kempa]

Hi @Moses Thomas

Unfortunately it is not possible to disable that in Crowd.

Best Regards,

Marcin Kempa