This is clearly a major vulnerability and not a feature, it's a permissions/credentials hijack.
The user has given permission for audio and videos recording to the jitsi domain during a previous meeting, and the domain is using those permissions to start an unsolicited meeting initiated by a 3rd party, who is given access to the video and audio of the victim.
Jitsi dev here. We are currently revisiting this. It exists because in cases such as when Jitsi Meet is being embdeed there are pre-join pages provided externally by the "host" site. We will be limiting how this can be used going forward.
Is/will there be any discussion on how initial triage of potential security issues will be handled in the future?
It was disappointing to see the responses in the post. A curt "It's a feature" to a valid security concern & disclosure, and not replying to a request to publish.
Jitsi says "We encourage responsible disclosure for the sake of our users, so please reach out before posting in a public space.". But if no one bothers to reply, why bother to reach out to Jitsi in the first place?
https://jitsi.org/ says, literally in the hero image banner, "More secure" as the first thing you see. The handling of this raises some concerns about that. (If you don't want to be scrutinized as much about privacy & security stuff, I would recommend not advertising "more secure" as the first thing people see on the site)
config (which implicitly decides weather or not a prejoin dialog is shown)
but this makes me wonder
1. why can you set that config in a URL? Allowing users to set it for them-self seems fine, but allowing rooms or URL to use it seems ... off.
2. how many other sites have this attack surface (e.g. MS Teams) just more obscure
3. actually the moment the attacker controls JS probably *all* other video conference systems have the feature, through potentially needing a lot of additional work. In which case maybe just being straightforward and open about it is fine? But the cost of such an attack is just a very bit too low compared to other conference systems.
Matrix embedded Jitsi as their voice/video calling solution for a while, probably still does depending on what client you use. Automatically joining the call when you click the call button just makes sense from a UX perspective.
That said, I can't think of a reason why you'd want to permit it outside of very specific containers. Useful for integration, but outright bad design for a public instance.
It's not so much about the permissions (which is a browser issue) but about the config.prejoinConfig.enabled flag: usually when joining a meeting, you get an interstitial page which let's you check your webcam image and sound settings before hitting join to enter the call. This setting (passed as a request param) skips that screen.
I'm not a fan, either. I'm used to the interstitial page from other services, and in fact would not expect to join a call and stream data before hitting "join".
Jitsi is used in many custom solutions (which may have their own UI for getting user opt-in, like a customer hitting "Next step" in a registration wizard), I expect that's why they added it.
if it's embedded in another service and you already clicked join etc. through that other service to name one UX flow where an additional pre-join dialog would be not supper wanted
I e.g. would not complain if MS Teams (I have to use for work) would not put me into a pre join dialog every time I click join in Outlook but just joins me with mic muted/camera disabled by default. But then it also wouldn't be a security issue in my case as I put MS Teams and co. into it's own browser window/process/profile (not due to concerns but more as a side effect of them refusing to even trying to work on Firefox and not wanting to miss out on the tab sync + tab group + account container and not being allowed to install arbitrary extensions which add similar functionality to chrome).
Not that I use Jitsi, but I suddenly feel more embarrassed about my number of open tabs. Some other exploit could have silently been launched long ago.
At least in Firefox, tabs recording have a pulsing red microphone on the favicon. I feel like you would have noticed, but perhaps you have so many that it is scrolled out of view?
Maybe my Mac is set to be paranoid, but can you share video without being asked to give the mic and camera permission to operate? I chat with jitsi all the time and have to give jitsi explicit permission to use the mic/camera each time.
> but can you share video without being asked to give the mic and camera permission to operate?
yes it's a browser setting to "remember mic/camera permission for given site"
to which extend this "remember" is there by default, can be disabled through system config/MDA etc. is probably very
lastly iff that is a default for Safari on Mac I wouldn't be surprised if that was not only placed their to protect your safety but to annoy you and push you to use Mac, it would fit into a sad list of similar things done by Apple to push people to go through their app store. But then more safe is still more better for many users.
Readit News
The user has given permission for audio and videos recording to the jitsi domain during a previous meeting, and the domain is using those permissions to start an unsolicited meeting initiated by a 3rd party, who is given access to the video and audio of the victim.
It was disappointing to see the responses in the post. A curt "It's a feature" to a valid security concern & disclosure, and not replying to a request to publish.
Jitsi says "We encourage responsible disclosure for the sake of our users, so please reach out before posting in a public space.". But if no one bothers to reply, why bother to reach out to Jitsi in the first place?
https://jitsi.org/ says, literally in the hero image banner, "More secure" as the first thing you see. The handling of this raises some concerns about that. (If you don't want to be scrutinized as much about privacy & security stuff, I would recommend not advertising "more secure" as the first thing people see on the site)
config.prejoinConfig.enabled=false
config (which implicitly decides weather or not a prejoin dialog is shown)
but this makes me wonder
1. why can you set that config in a URL? Allowing users to set it for them-self seems fine, but allowing rooms or URL to use it seems ... off.
2. how many other sites have this attack surface (e.g. MS Teams) just more obscure
3. actually the moment the attacker controls JS probably *all* other video conference systems have the feature, through potentially needing a lot of additional work. In which case maybe just being straightforward and open about it is fine? But the cost of such an attack is just a very bit too low compared to other conference systems.
That said, I can't think of a reason why you'd want to permit it outside of very specific containers. Useful for integration, but outright bad design for a public instance.
I'm not a fan, either. I'm used to the interstitial page from other services, and in fact would not expect to join a call and stream data before hitting "join".
Jitsi is used in many custom solutions (which may have their own UI for getting user opt-in, like a customer hitting "Next step" in a registration wizard), I expect that's why they added it.
I e.g. would not complain if MS Teams (I have to use for work) would not put me into a pre join dialog every time I click join in Outlook but just joins me with mic muted/camera disabled by default. But then it also wouldn't be a security issue in my case as I put MS Teams and co. into it's own browser window/process/profile (not due to concerns but more as a side effect of them refusing to even trying to work on Firefox and not wanting to miss out on the tab sync + tab group + account container and not being allowed to install arbitrary extensions which add similar functionality to chrome).
yes it's a browser setting to "remember mic/camera permission for given site"
to which extend this "remember" is there by default, can be disabled through system config/MDA etc. is probably very
lastly iff that is a default for Safari on Mac I wouldn't be surprised if that was not only placed their to protect your safety but to annoy you and push you to use Mac, it would fit into a sad list of similar things done by Apple to push people to go through their app store. But then more safe is still more better for many users.
... browser specific
not sure where that words disappeared, too
(As in during the pandemic -- long ago in vuln times.)
I am willing to discuss it, off the record, if someone provides their signal information.
it's probably also not just affecting Jitsi (in a context only looking at "proper" video conference systems)
through its exceedingly simple to archive with Jitsi