Skip to content

OpenRefine leaks Google API credentials in releases

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Oct 24, 2024 in OpenRefine/OpenRefine • Updated Oct 24, 2024

Package

maven org.openrefine:openrefine (Maven)

Affected versions

< 3.8.3

Patched versions

3.8.3

Description

Impact

OpenRefine releases contain Google API authentication keys ("client id" and "client secret") which can be extracted from released artifacts. For instance, download the package for OpenRefine 3.8.2 on linux. It contains the file openrefine-3.8.2/webapp/extensions/gdata/module/MOD-INF/lib/openrefine-gdata.jar, which can be extracted.
This archive then contains the file com/google/refine/extension/gdata/GoogleAPIExtension.java, which contains the following lines:

    // For a production release, the second parameter (default value) can be set
    // for the following three properties (client_id, client_secret, and API key) to
    // the production values from the Google API console
    private static final String CLIENT_ID = System.getProperty("ext.gdata.clientid", new String(Base64.getDecoder().decode("ODk1NTU1ODQzNjMwLWhkZWwyN3NxMDM5ZjFwMmZ0aGE2M2VvcWFpY2JwamZoLmFwcHMuZ29vZ2xldXNlcmNvbnRlbnQuY29t")));
    private static final String CLIENT_SECRET = System.getProperty("ext.gdata.clientsecret", new String(Base64.getDecoder().decode("R2V2TnZiTnA2a3IxeDd5c3VZNENmYlNo")));

The Base64 encoding can then be decoded to obtain the client id and client secret.
Those credentials can then be used by other applications to request access to Google accounts, pretending they are OpenRefine. This assumes that they also get access to the user access tokens, which this vulnerability doesn't expose by itself.

Patches

The bundled credentials should be revoked.

Workarounds

Users should revoke access to their Google account if they have connected it to OpenRefine.

References

@wetneb wetneb published to OpenRefine/OpenRefine Oct 24, 2024
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Oct 24, 2024
Reviewed Oct 24, 2024
Last updated Oct 24, 2024

Severity

High

Weaknesses

CVE ID

No known CVE

GHSA ID

GHSA-3pg4-qwc8-426r

Source code

Loading Checking history
See something to contribute? Suggest improvements for this vulnerability.