GHSA-f3wc-3vxv-xmvr Synapse Outgoing federation to specific hosts can be disabled by sending malicious invites

• PyPI matrix-synapse: < 1.74.0 → fixed in 1.74.0

Impact A malicious user on a Synapse homeserver X with permission to create certain state events can disable outbound federation from X to an arbitrary homeserver Y. Synapse instances with federation disabled are not affected. Details The Matrix protocol allows homeservers to provide an `invite_room_state` field on a room invite containing a summary of room state. In versions of Synapse up to and including v1.73.0, Synapse did not limit the size of `invite_room_state`, meaning that it was possible to create an arbitrarily large invite event. An attacker with an account on a vulnerable Synapse homeserver X could exploit this by having X create an over-sized invite event in a room with a user from another homeserver Y. Once acknowledged by the invitee's homeserver, the invite event would be sent in a batch of events to Y. If the malicious invite is so large that the entire batch is rejected as too large, X's outgoing traffic to Y would become "stuck", meaning that messages and state events created by X would remain unseen by Y. Patches Synapse 1.74 refuses to create oversized `invite_room_state` fields. Server operators should upgrade to Synapse 1.74 or newer urgently. Workarounds There are no robust workarounds. This attack needs an account on Synapse homeserver X to deny federation from X to another homeserver Y. As a partial mitigation, Synapse operators can disable open registration to limit the ability of attackers to create new accounts on homeserver X. If homeserver X has been attacked in this way, restarting it will resume outgoing federation by entering "catchup mode". For catchup mode to ignore the oversized invites, every attacked room must have a correctly-sized event sent by X which is newer than any oversized invite. This is difficult to arrange, and does not prevent the attacker from repeating their attack. References • https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/14492 was caused by this issue. • https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/14642 includes the patch described above. For more information If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, e-mail us at [email protected].