DRUPAL SECURITY
HOW TO SURVIVE DRUPAGEDDON AND
PREPARE FOR FUTURE
Created by Kristian Polso / @kristian_polso

ABOUT ME
Kristian Polso
CTO at Vaiste Productions
Been working with Drupal since version 5
Earlier PHP background
@kristian_polso

ABOUT VAISTE PRODUCTIONS
Drupal solutions company
Based in Turku, Finland
Focus on more customized Drupal
solutions & integrations
http://vaiste.com / @vaisteprod

PURPOSE OF THIS PRESENTATION
What was Drupageddon and what happened
How to prepare for similar vulnerabilities
Best practices

WHAT WAS DRUPAGEDDON?
A vulnerability found in Drupal 7's database abstraction API
Drupal Security Team was informed of it in September 2014
Update released on October 15 2014 (Drupal 7.32)
Biggest vulnerability in Drupal's history
Name given by twitter (#drupageddon)

HOW DID DRUPAGEDDON WORK?
// includes/database/database.inc
foreach (array_filter($args, 'is_array') as $key => $data) {
foreach ($data as $i => $value) {
$args are GET parameters from the user
$i are supposed to be keys, as in integers
SUPPOSED to be...

<input type="text" name="email[email1]" value="email1@address.com">
<input type="text" name="email[email2]" value="email2@address.com">
$_POST = array(
'email' => array(
'email1' => 'email1@address.com',
'email2' => 'email2@address.com',
)
);

<input type="text" name="email[email1]" value="email1@address.com">
<input type="text" name="email[0;UPDATE node SET title='uh­oh'; ­­]" value="email2@address.com">

ANY ANONYMOUS USER CAN GET ACCESS TO YOUR SITE'S
DATABASE

GO UPDATE YOUR DRUPAL SITE
NOW
SERIOUSLY, NOW

THE AFTERMATH
BBC: "Up to 12 million websites may have been
compromised"
Some hosting partners were really quick to patch
Drupal Security Team was super useful

CRAWLING THE TOP 15,000 DRUPAL
WEBSITES
goo.gl/NPr20o (polso.info)
Done in November 2014

IF YOU GOT HACKED
Recover from backups
drupal.org/project/drupalgeddon

HOW TO BE SAFE FROM SECURITY
VULNERABILITIES
Keep Drupal core & modules updated
Use managed hosting platforms (Acquia, Platform.sh,
Pantheon)
Writing secure code (drupal.org/writing-secure-code)

BEST PRACTICES

PERMISSIONS
Are all roles necessary?
Auto-grants
Review manually

XSS
Text formats
Adding nodes (titles, body)

AUTHENTICATION
Weak passwords
Autologout (d.o/project/autologout)
SSL

COMMON SECURITY
MISCONFIGURATIONS
Admin password? "admin"
Never use PHP input
Avoid FTP, use SFTP/SCP

VERSIONING
Try not to use dev versions in production
Thoroughly test

CUSTOM CODE

OPEN SOURCE IS AWESOME
Modules can have hundreds users
Easy issue tracking

COMMON PITFALLS IN CUSTOM
CODE
Not properly checking permissions
You don't notice your own mistakes

CONCLUSION
Update your modules
Try not to use dev versions in production
Review your custom code

THANK YOU
Kristian Polso
@kristian_polso