jeremydaly / jeremydaly/lambda-api

[Bug] Library expects all cookies to be URL encoded

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Dominant language
JavaScript
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Description

There is some historical ambiguity as to what the cookie value can contain. While there is a convention that the cookie value should be URL encoded, the specs don't seem to enforce this. lambda-api expects that the cookie value be URL encoded string. Any cookie containing a "%" character without a valid sequence will fail cookie decoding and can create an exception and a denial of service.

Fixing this is a bit tricky, as we would still want to correctly URL decode any standard cookie value while supporting non-standard ones. It might be worth discussing the correct solution here.

Some reference I found regarding the permitted characters in a cookie value:

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  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

The issue does not name a file or test. Start by locating lambda-api's cookie parsing and URL-decoding path, then reproduce a cookie value containing an invalid "%" sequence. Compare valid URL-encoded values with non-standard cookie values; done means malformed input no longer raises an exception while standard decoding remains correct.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript, node.js
Domain
api, backend, security
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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