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sec(auth): matchStringListConstraints is any-match for AccountIDs/Providers/Services (latent bypass) #138

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Description

@cristim

Summary

matchStringListConstraints (internal/auth/service_group.go) is an any-match (containsAny) matcher, used for the AccountIDs, Providers and Services constraint dimensions. It is safe today only because every caller happens to pass a single-element request list; nothing in the code enforces that.

The Regions dimension already had to be split out into matchAllRegionsConstraint for exactly this reason: an Azure RI exchange legitimately names several target locations at once, and under containsAny a caller permitted in one of them was granted all of them.

Risk

The first caller that submits a multi-value AccountIDs (or Providers / Services) request constraint silently reintroduces that same bypass class - a permission scoped to account A would authorise an operation spanning accounts A and B. It would look correct at the call site and no test would catch it.

Cheap hardening (behaviour-preserving today)

Either:

  • assert len(reqList) == 1 at the call sites that are documented to be single-valued, so a future multi-value request fails loudly instead of silently widening; or
  • switch AccountIDs (at least) to the all-match matcher, which is a no-op for single-element lists and correct for multi-element ones.

Low priority / latent: no known way to trigger it today, but the cost of closing it is near zero and the cost of it surfacing is an authorization bypass on a money path.

Found during adversarial review of PR LeanerCloud/cloud-commitments-cli#1515. Out of scope for that PR.

Activity

  1. IAmJSD commented on Oct 19, 2026

    @IAmJSD
    Collaborator

    Claiming: working on this

  2. self-assigned this
    on Oct 20, 2026
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