[POOL-352] CallStackUtils mishandles security manager check part 1

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 2.7.0
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Volker Kleinschmidt
• Created: 17/Oct/18 02:41
• Updated: 25/Jul/19 01:34
• Resolved: 25/Jul/19 01:34

Description

This ticket is for (a).

CallStackUtils determines at initialization time whether it is allowed to create a security manager, then sticks that info into a static variable and never checks it again, relying on this check to later try to create a SecurityManager for a SecurityManagerCallStack. This is doubly wrong:

a) If the code is running in a privileged context at init time, it determines that it can create a security manager, and then later naively assumes that henceforth all code is privileged and also can create a security manager. Of course this is not true, otherwise one would not need a security manager in the first place! This info can never be kept in a static variable, it's extremely context-dependent. So this leads to AccessControlException from invoking newCallStack() if abandoned object logging is enabled.

b) The permission to create a security manager must never be granted to any code, unless that code has AllPermission in the first place, i.e. is already fully privileged. This is because this permission allows circumventing the security manager completely (simply create one that lets all checks pass). Therefore even just checking whether you're allowed to create a secmgr is naive - if a secmgr is installed at all you should assume that you're NOT privileged enough to do this, simply because for sure some code that calls your code will not be privileged enough.

 

Issue Links

• is cloned by: POOL-372 CallStackUtils mishandles security manager check part 2