[New-bugs-announce] [issue42988] Information disclosure via pydoc -p

[Miro Hrončok]

New submission from Miro Hrončok <miro at hroncok.cz>:

Hello Python security,
a Fedora user has reported the following security vulnerability to us (I was able to verify it):

Running `pydoc -p` allows other local users to extract arbitrary files.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. start pydoc on a port
2. as a different user guess or extract the port
3. call getfile on the server to extract arbitrary files, e.g. http://localhost:8888/getfile?key=/home/dave/.ssh/id_rsa

Actual results:
any local user on the multi-user system can read all my keys and secrets

Expected results:
Access is prevented.

Additional info:
At least a warning should be printed, that this is insecure on multi-user systems.

Python notebook works around this by providing a token that is required to access the notepad. Depending on the system being able to read arbitrary files can allow to impersonate my, by  e.g. stealing my ssh-key (if it is non-encrypted) 



I've originally reported this to security at python.org but I was asked to open a public issue here.

----------
components: Library (Lib)
messages: 385412
nosy: hroncok
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Information disclosure via pydoc -p
type: security
versions: Python 3.10, Python 3.6, Python 3.7, Python 3.8, Python 3.9

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue42988>
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