security implications of legacy url.parse() should be more clearly documented

[sam-github]

• Version: all
• Platform: all
• Subsystem: url

url.parse() is "sloppy" with its parsing, so use of it can result in behaviour unexpected by some users that has security implications.

It is marked as deprecated at https://nodejs.org/api/url.html#url_url_parse_urlstring_parsequerystring_slashesdenotehost, but the docs don't specifically call out the security issues, so people won't necessarily know that security is a reason to avoid it.

It also doesn't list the specific (known) security issues, so that its not possible for users of the legacy url.parse() API to determine whether their usage is insecure.

These should be addressed through documentation.

Related

• https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/23694
• https://hackerone.com/reports/738333
• https://hackerone.com/reports/678487

Vulnerability reports in process of disclosure, so link will be dead for a while longer.

[sam-github]

https://hackerone.com/reports/678487 has been disclosed.

It would be helpful if the documentation was updated to warn about issues such as that.